tannin, and alum, to correct a disease called graisse, which I never yet knew the Catawba or any other of our wines to have, and which, in consequence of its excess of tartar, I am sure it is impossible for it to have.

If he were very sapient, he would also undertake to mingle different kinds, a thing quite unnecessary, and, as regards effect on the health, more or less pernicious, though in time we shall probably come to it. He would be pretty certain to add to the new wine a certain proportion of old, for he would not know that wine ripens here faster than in France, hence that no such mixture is either necessary or proper. (For my part, I consider it highly injurious, where Catawba is the wine, and would be slow to believe it good for any.)

Then he would have his secret recipe for the sweetening sirups, which he would as carefully conceal from his employer as if it were actually the philosopher's stone; but which, could he be induced to reveal it, would prove to be something like that I have just given, and which, especially designed for John Bull's palate, sweetens his posset with Port, Madeira, and Cognac, Cognac, Cognac, etc., whereas, in fact and in truth, so far as relates to bottling wine grown in the Ohio Valley, every drop of spirit added is a posi

tive injury, and, except perhaps what little may be required to preserve the sirup until needed for use, has, after full trial, been abandoned.

By discarding these dosings and mixings, we may thus get rid of the most troublesome and complicated part of the business; very little seems to remain that we may not learn for ourselves. In the beginning we shall blunder, it is true; but a Champagne or Hochheim professor would blunder worse. We shall have to learn; they would have to unlearn as well.

One great obstacle in our way is the difficulty of obtaining good, reliable bottles and corks.

The reason why I have not gone more fully into details is that the Sparkling wine business is so hazardous, and the capital that must be hazarded is so large, I shrink from the responsibility of helping any one to embark in it. Besides, any who might undertake it would find it quite as easy to obtain from abroad all the best treatises on the subject, both German and French, as to buy and import reliable bottles and corks, and the latest and best machines. I have only been trying to clear away, for the benefit of beginners, some of the cobwebs of mystery woven in the cellars of Champagne, and which my visit there helped me to see were only cobwebs.

The Americans love pop, foam, and noise, and will

always consume largely of gaseous drinks. They have in the Catawba a wine capable of great things. Let but the product be large enough to allow the bottler. to select only the choicest specimens, and of the best vintages, and those who follow the business properly, and especially those who secure good corks, need fear no competition from any thing likely to be sent over here, however it might be if the comparison were with those princely qualities found only on the great tables of Europe. There are those who think the day of the Catawba has gone by, but I am not one of them. Its wine has qualities which peculiarly fit it to combine with sugar, either in the bottle or the "cobbler." The last, made of new and sufficiently acid wine, such as is easily found in the West, but seldom or never in the East, is a summer drink of unsurpassed excellence. in Europe to match it. would be glad if there could exchange the best grapes of foreign fruit-markets for the clusters he loved at home. In its place I will consider the question whether there is danger of this valuable variety being destroyed by the oïdium.

Certainly there is nothing Many an American traveler were, and be glad, too, if he

We will visit Champagne again when the leaves are green on the vines, and bestow our time, not on the dark, deep cellars, but on prettier objects above and outside of them.

CHAPTER IX.

PARIS AND THE GREAT EXHIBITION.

A GREAT Exhibition was that of Paris in 1867

-grand and magnificent as a battle-and a battle indeed it was, wherein not two, nor three, but all the nations of the round world met in the contest, and mingled in the display

66 "Their rival scarfs of rich embroidery."

Worthy was it to be remembered by all who bore part in it, as a soldier remembers he was present and fit for duty when some proud day of war was won.

In the three months and a half during which I was an almost daily attendant in the Champ de Mars, I saw a good deal of liquor consumed. Every country had its restaurant, where the drinks native to its soil were drunk by the natives of others--a pleasanter way, that, of tasting the soils of distant lands by sample, as it were, than of acquiring a knowledge of them by dint of locomotion.

The American restaurant dispensed soda - water

and iced drinks- exclusively American I believe they all are which not only astonished, but delighted multitudes, who took the first glass from curiosity, but the second from appreciation. An Englishman who had carried either his curiosity or appreciation as far as the tenth glass, said, "Your people ought to excel in compounding drinks, for, taken by themselves, your liquors are infamous." "Yes," I answered, “necessity was probably the mother of their invention. Nature having thus far denied to us those more natural drinks with which other people are blessed, we have been forced to imitate them with what materials were at hand. Cobblers,' 'juleps,' and 'cocktails,' stone fences,' 'hail-storms,' and 'smiles,' are but so many different kinds of American wines. There is spirits for strength, sugar for taste, lemon-peel or mint for bouquet, and powder of ice for quantity."

And why are they not wines? and why should we take the trouble to grow wines when the bar-keeper can so easily and deftly make them for us? Is tannin wanted? nut-gall is cheap; or, Is color desired ? elder-berries and logwood are still cheaper. If the disciples of Chaptal are right, who say their imitations effected by fermenting quantities of sugared water on a few grape-skins and seeds, or mixed with