VITICULTURE, or The vine is any climbing plant, especially if shrubby, as the bop-vine, the vines of melons; but the name particularly belongs to a. plant t:;:f the genus Vitis of the natural order Vitacem, haying pentamerous flowers (five-toothed calyx, five Petals, five stamens), and the petals united into a kind of hood, and deciduous. The most important species is the grapevine (vitis vinif era), from the fruit of which wine and raisins are made. Until the ravages of the Phylloxera made tt important to secure a more vigorous stock, this was the only species planted, to any extent in Europe. Owing either to inherent weakness of the plant or to lack of suitable climatic conditions, varieties of this species do not thrive in the United States except in Cali fornia and pos.sibly a limited area in the South.
The grapevine 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 abounding with ve,ssels 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, much branched, are opposite to the upper leaves, or in their stead are tendrils. The flowers are small, greenish white, and fra grant. The fruit is a round or oval berry, two celled and four-seeded, varying rauch in size and color—in the small Corinth or Currant Grape, about one-fourth of an inch in diameter; in the largest varieties, more than half an inch; green, yeliow, red, purple and sotnetunes varie gated, but the color is entirely in the outer slcin, 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, e. g., the seedless Ascalon or Sultane raisins. The vine attains large ssize, the stern being sometimes 18 inches in diameter (a vine in California is said to have a diameter of 36 inches), so that the wood, which is very hard and durable, has been used for malcing furniture, statues, etc. It attains very great age, continuing fruitful for at least 300 or 400 years.
The gra,pe is one of the most valuable of fruits, not only for its use in the manufacture of wine, and as the source from which brandy, vinegar and tartaric acid are obtained, but also becat,ce, both in a fresh and dried state, it forms not a mere article of luxury, but a great part of the food of the inhabitants of some countries. Dried grapes, under the names raisins and currants, are a considerable article of conunerce. Fresh grapes are commonly eaten with bread in Syria, and some other countries in which they abound. The useful
ness of some varieties of the tisane is increased by its ability to keep fresh for many weeks ix stored in a cool airy place. The number of varieties described in works on the culture of the grape and in the catalogues of nurserymen is already among the thousands, and many new kinds, obtained from seed and by hybridization, are introduced every year. Under the. name Ampelography (Gr. empelos, a vine), this _sub ject has been elevated by German wnters almost to the rank of a science.
It is doubted of what country the grapevine is a native, nor is it lcnown at s..vhat time — certainly very remote—its cultivation was first introduced into southern Europe. It is now found wild in parts of Europe, but is rather naturalized than truly native. It seems prob able that it is indigenous in the hilly countries south 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 The cultivation of the grape and the mak ing 9f wine are of roost remote antiquity as appears from the Scripture history of N'oah and front many Passattes. of the 2208t Mit= authors. The mythological fable of the marches of Bacchus relates to the extension of the cul. ture of the vine from Asia into Europe. The earliest records of the manner of cultivating' the vine are by the Roman authors Virgil and Colturella. The vine was introduced into southern France probably as early as into Italy; it is said to have been brought to Marseilles lry the Phocmans, about ac. 6N, and its cultiva tion was early, coextensive with civilization in all the countnes near the Mediterranean. In Italy, so much of the land was occupied by viney:ards that Emperor Domitian, fearing a scarcity of cora, issued a restrictive or pro hibitory edict, A.D. 81, which continued long in force, through tear that the abundance of fine wine might tempt the barbarians of the north to invade the country. The vine was introduced into southern Germany about DA 3d century. Augustus preferred the Rhartian wine to all other. The first vineyards on the Rhine and Moselle were planted by the Emperor Probris (A.D. 281), Under thi Merovirigians, the culture of the yule extended greatly in France and Germany. Charlemagne derived considerable revenue frons the vineyards even of the north ern parts of his empire. The Huns who remained in a number of settlements on the Rhine after the expedition of Attila into Gaul in 451, brought thither from Pannonia the arts of cultivating the grape, and of making wine, and Hunnish grapes and Htumish wine were long in high repute. In the Middle Ages, the monks were the first to plant vineyards and to make wine in many parts of Europe.