I made acquaintance, I remember, at Cincinnati, with Mr. Longworth, who was, or became well known throughout America for his successful efforts in viticulture. He was one of those men who, being by no means entertaining companions on any other subject, become so, if you will talk to them upon their own. I have often thought that the “sink the shop” maxim is a great mistake. If I had to pass an hour with a chimney-sweep, I should probably find him very good company if he would talk exclusively about sweeping chimneys. Mr. Longworth was extremely willing to talk exclusively on schemes for the introduction of the vine into the western states, and on that subject was well worth listening to. I find a note in a diary, written by me at that time, to the effect that he was then (1828) employing a large number of Germans on his estate at Columbia near Cincinnati at a little less than one shilling a day and their food. I remarked that this seemed scarcely in accord with the current accounts of the high price of labour in the states, and was answered that his--Mr. Longworth’s--bailiff had said to him the other day, “If those men get to Cincinnati they will be _spoiled_”--a little touch which rather vividly illustrates one phase of the difference made in all things by railway communication. But the most remarkable acquaintance we made at Cincinnati was Hiram Powers, the subsequently well-known sculptor, with whom I again fell in many years afterwards at Florence, when he was living there with his large family, having just acquired a large and lucrative degree of celebrity by his statue of “The Greek Slave,” purchased by an Englishman whom my mother had taken to visit his studio. I do not know by what chance she had first become acquainted with him at Cincinnati.