"Plant a vine on my grave and see it clasp its hands with joy.
"The Grape is the most beautiful, most wholesome and nutritious, most certain and profitable fruit that can be grown.
"In this work, in special journeys for the purpose, and incidentally in other journeys in which I traveled altogether some 75,000 miles, reaching into every state and territory in the United States in North America, except six, and considerably into Mexico, I hunted grapes from train car windows, jumping off to collect specimens at every stop in the wood, to water or coal, or cool a hot-box, or wait for other trains, I rode horseback many days in each year in grape time for several years in Texas and Oklahoma hunting for choice varieties to move into my vineyards as parents of new families.
"The grape is the most delicious and nourishing fruit that Mother Earth sends forth from her bosom.
"Alone, as a table ornament, a pretty stand of black, white and red grapes, can not be surpassed by a most exquisite bouquet of flowers.
"A pretty bottle of sparkling wine, adds much to the beauty Of the table and greatly to the condiments and healthful appetizers.
"France, the most refined and prosperous nation on earth in agriculture, makes the grape her leading product. Texas, a territory rather larger than France, with far greater area of tillable surface, and soils, sites and climates equally favorable, should make grape growing one of its leading industries.