A Journey through Texas: Or a Saddle-Trip on the Southwestern Frontier

by Frederick Law Olmsted

Twenty miles above Cincinnati begin the vines. They occupy the hill-slopes at the river’s edge, and near the city cover nearly the whole ground that can be seen under cultivation. They are grown as on the Rhine, attached to small stakes three or four feet high, and some three by six feet apart. What a pity the more graceful Italian mode of swinging long vine-branches from tree to tree, could not be adopted. But profit and beauty are, as often, here again at war. The principal cultivators are naturally Germans. For the most part the land is held by them in small parcels; but much is also rented for a fixed share of the crop. Only the large owners bottle their own crop. The grape juice is mostly sold to dealers who have invested in the necessary storehouses and apparatus. The principal dealer, as well as the largest landholder and grower of vines, is Nicholas Longworth. To his perseverance in prolonged experiments we are