were hospitably entertained. Our host was a man of means and evidently
regarded our visit as a pleasure, and we were therefore correspondingly
at our ease, and in a position to act with the coolness of judgment
desirable in making so radical a change in our lives. My cousin placed a
horse and buggy at our disposal, and himself acted as our guide until I
became somewhat familiar with the country.

I found that grape-culture, while it had never been carried on to any
great extent, was not entirely unknown in the neighborhood. Several
planters thereabouts had attempted it on a commercial scale, in former
years, with greater or less success; but like most Southern industries,
it had felt the blight of war and had fallen into desuetude.

I went several times to look at a place that I thought might suit me. It
was a plantation of considerable extent, that had formerly belonged to a
wealthy man by the name of McAdoo. The estate had been for years
involved in litigation between disputing heirs, during which period
shiftless cultivation had well-nigh exhausted the soil. There had been a
vineyard of some extent on the place, but it had not been attended to
since the war, and had lapsed into utter neglect. The vines--here
partly supported by decayed and broken-down trellises, there twining
themselves among the branches of the slender saplings which had sprung
up among them--grew in wild and unpruned luxuriance, and the few
scattered grapes they bore were the undisputed prey of the first comer.
The site was admirably adapted to grape-raising; the soil, with a little
attention, could not have been better; and with the native grape, the
luscious scuppernong, as my main reliance in the beginning, I felt sure
that I could introduce and cultivate successfully a number of other
varieties.