VINE, a term sometimes used to designate any climbing plant, especially if shrub bery, but also more particularly applied to the species of the genus rills, of the natural order ritacece. This genus has pentamerous flowers (5-toothed calyx, 5 petals, 5 sta mens), and has the petals united into a kind of hood and deciduous. The most import ant species is the GRAPE VINE (V. viWera), from the fruit of which wine and raisins are made. The name grape is from the French grappe, a bunch of grapes; from the same root as gripe or grab, to grasp.
The grape vine has large, angular, lobed, toothed, and more or less hairy leaves. The stems are numerous and branching, very long, and of rapid growth, with many tumid joints, the outer bark readily splitting and peeling off, the woody tissue abound ing with vessels of large size, from which at the seasons of active vegetation, if the branch is wounded or cut across, the sap pours in prodigious quantity. The fruit-stalks, which are much branched, are opposite to the upper leaves, or in their stead are tend rils. The flowers are small, greenish white, and fragrant. The fruit is a round or oval berry, 2-celled and 4-seeded, varying much in size and color—in the small Corinth or currant grape, about of an inch in diameter; in the largest varieties, more than half an inch; green, yellow, red, purple, and sometimes variegated; but the color is entirely in the outer skin, the juice being always colorless; and while the pulp of the grape is wholesome, nutritious, and gently laxative, the skin is astringent and indigestible. Some of the ovules are often abortive, or even all of them in the fruit of old vines of some varieties, as in the seedless Ascalon or Sultana raisins.
The vine attains a large size, the stem being sometimes 18 inches in diameter, so that the wood, which is very hard and durable, has been employed for making furni ture, statues, etc. It attains also a very great age, continuing fruitful for at least three or four hundred years.
The grape is one of the most valuable of fruits, not only because of its use in the manufacture of wine, and as the source also from which brandy, vinegar and tartaric acid are obtained, but because, both in a fresh and dried state, it forms not a mere arti• cle of luxury, but a great part of the food of the inhabitants of some countries. Dried grapes, under the names of raisins and currants, are a considerable article of commerce. Fresh grapes are commonly eaten with bread in Syria, and some other countries is which they abound. The usefulness of the grape is increased by its keeping fresh fox many weeks in a cool airy place. Some varieties are more easily kept than others. More than 1500 varieties are described in works on the culture of the grape; and this subject, under the name ampelography (Gr. ampelos, a vine), has been elevated by some recent German writers almost to the rank of a distinct branch of science. The quality of the grape is extremely liable to be affected by circumstances of soil and climate, and this is particularly to be observed in the wine produced from it, the difference between the produce of two vineyards in the same neighborhood being often very remarkable.
The vine dislikes a damp soil, but will thrive in almost any open soil with good drainage. In rich deep soils it grows luxuriantly, and produces abundance of large fruit; but on shallow, dry soils, the fruit, though less abundant, is of finer flavor. The vineyards most celebrated for the excellence of their wines are not generally of rich soil. The steep slopes of hills are often planted with the vine, and are sometimes terraced for this purpose; and nothing can be more suitable to situations where patches of good soil are mingled with bare rocks, nor anything more beautiful than the rocks covered with luxuriant foliage and rich fruit. This mode of cultivation on steep rocky slopes was anciently very prevalent in Judma.
It is doubted of what country the grape-vine is a native, nor is it known at what time, certainly very remote, its cultivation was first introduced into the s. of Europe. It is now found wild in some parts of Europe, but is rather naturalized than truly native. It seems probable that it is indigenous in the hilly countries on the s. of the Caspian sea, where it is very abundant and luxuriant, climbing to the tops of the loftiest trees, and producing large bunches of delicious fruit. But it is doubted if Ditis Indica, a native of the n. of India, abounding in some parts of the Himalaya, is really a different species.The wild grapes of these mountains are round and purple, and very agreeable. It is doubted also by some if any of the wild grapes of America are really distinct; some of which, however, are much more different in their characters and qualities from the com mon form of the cultivated plant. Of these American grapes, the Fox GRAPE (V. labrusca) is the most similar to the cultivated grape. It is common throughout great part of North America, and is found as far n. as Quebec. The berries are large, deep blue, with thick skin and tough pulp, but make good wine, and have been found capa ble of much improvement by cultivation; their color also varying to red and white. The CHICKEN GRAPE (V. cestivalis), not found n. of lat. 42°, has smaller and more agreeable berries, which are regularly brought to the Philadelphia market. Very similar to this is V. sinuata, a native of Virginia and Carolina, from the fruit of which' good wine is made. The BIILLACE GRAPE (V. roturulifotia), found only as far n. as lat. 39°, has larger grapes than any other American species, and of agreeable flavor. There is also a species (V. cordifolia or xulpina) with small nauseous berries, and one (Y. npar2a ) found abundantly on gravelly banks of rivers in the western states, which has exquisitely fra grant flowers. But the habit and leaves of all these differ very little from those of the common vine. Nor does the WATER WITHE of Jamaica, so called from the great quail thy of sap which its shoots pour out when cut (V. Caribbcea), differ in very marked bo tanical characters; although its small black berries, which it produces in immense quan thy, are acid and austere.