9149. WINES, Making.—
The culture of
the vine is not desirable in lands capable of
producing anything else. It is a species of
gambling, and desperate gambling, too, wherein,
whether you make much or nothing, you are
equally ruined. The middling crop alone is the
saving point, and that the seasons seldom hit.
Accordingly, we see much wretchedness among
this class of cultivators. Wine, too, is so cheap
in these countries [of Europe], that a laborer
with us, employed in the culture of any other
article, may exchange it for wine, more and
better than he could raise himself. It is a resource
for a country the whole of whose good
soil is otherwise employed, and which still has
some barren spots, and surplus of population to
employ on them. There the vine is good, because
it is something in the place of nothing.
It may become a resource to us at a still later
period; when the increase of population shall
increase our productions beyond the demand
for them, both at home and abroad. Instead of
going on to make an useless surplus of them,
we may employ our supernumerary hands on the
vine.—
To William Drayton. Washington ed. ii, 198.
(P.
1787)
