VINE
V92
VINE
new grape, another a leaf, and a third even a bunch of the same [)reciuiis materials. See Tk.mple.
Even before Israel ruuk jiossession, the land of prom- ise was a land of vineyards (Dcut. vi, 11; xxviii, 29; Numb, xiii, 23) ; and it is interesting to observe with what minuteness the divine legislator enacted rules and regulations for the culture of their vineyards, while the prospective owners still wandered in a burning desert (Exod. xxii, 5; xxiii, 11; Lev. xxv, 5, 1 1 ; Nurab. vi, 3: Deut. xxii, 9; xxiii, 24; xxiv, 21). For this cult- ure the portion of Judah was especially adapted, and in obtaining for his inheritance the hilly slopes of the south, the prophecy of his ancestor was fultilled — he washed his garments in wine and his clothes in the blood of grapes (Gen. xlix, 11). Here, more than else- where, are to be seen on the sides of the hills the vine- yards, marked by their watch-towers aiul walls, seated on their ancient terraces — the earliest and latest symbol of Judah. The elevation of the hills and table-lands of Judah is the true climate of the vine, and at Hebron, according to the Jewish tradition, was its primeval seat. It was from the Judtean valley of Eshcol — " the torrent of the cluster" — that the spies cut down the gigantic cluster of grapes. A vineyard on a " hill of olives" (" a horn the son of oil," Isa. v, 1 ), with the "fence," and '•the stones gathered out," and "the tower in the midst thereof," is the natural figure which, both in the pro- phetical and evangelical reconls, represents the king- dom of Judah. The vine was the emblem on the coins of the Maccabees, and in the colossal cluster of golden grapes which overhung the porch of the second Tem- ple; and the grapes of Judah still mark the tombstones of the Hebrew race in the oldest of their European cemeteries, at Prague (Stanley, Sin. and Palest, p. 1(12). Although from many of its most famous haunts the vine has disappeared — for example, from Engedi — both in Southern Palestine and on the slopes of Lebanon there are specimens sufficient to vindicate the old renown of this "land of vine3'ards." "The grapes of Hebron are still considered the finest in the Holy Land. Bunches weighing from six to seven pounds are said to be by no means uncommon, and Sir IMoses Montetiore said he saw one bunch at Hebron a yard long" (Gadby, Wanderings, p. 458). Schulz (Letfunqen des //uchsten, v, 28b, qiwted by Rosenmiiller, J^ibl. Bat. p. 223) speaks of supping at Beitshin, a village near Ptolemais, under a vine whose stem was about a foot and a half in diameter, and whose height was about thirty feet, which by its branches formed a hut upwards of thirty feet broad and long. " The clusters of these extraordinary vines," he adds, " are so large that they weigh ten or twelve pounds, and the berries may be compared with our small plums." See also Belon, Observat. ii, 340 : " Les seps des vignes sont fort gros et les rameaux fort spacieux. Les habi- tants entendent bien comnie il la faut gouverner. Car ils la plantent si loing I'uue de I'autre qu'on pourroit
^\atch-tower m \iueyard.
mencr une charrette entre deux. Ce n'est pas grande mervcille si les raisins sont si beaux et le vin si puis- sant." Strabo states that it is recorded that there are vines in Margiana whose stems are such as would re- quire two men to span roiuid, and whose clusters are two cubits long {Geof/rap/i. [ed. Kramer], i, 112). Now Margiana is the modern district of Ghilan, in Persia, south-west of the Caspian Sea, aiul the very country on whose hills the vine is believed to be indigenous. Noth- ing would be easier than to multiply testimonies rela- tive to the large size of the grapes of Palestine, from the published accounts of travellers such as Elliot, Laborde, Mariti, Dandini (who expresses his surprise at the ex- traortlinarj' size of tlie grapes of Lebanon), Kussell, etc. We must be content with quoting tlie following extract from Kitto's Physical Hist, of Palest, p. 330, which is strikingly illustrative of the spies' mode of carrying the grapes from Eshcol : " Elven in our own country a bunch of grapes was produced at Welbeck, and sent as a pres- ent from the duke of Kutland to the marquis of Rock- ingham, which weighed nineteen pounds. It was con- vej'ed to its destination — more than twenty miles dis- tant— on a staff by four laborers, two of whom bore it in rotation." The greatest diameter of this cluster was nineteen inches and a half, its circumference four feet and a half, and its length nearly twenty-three inches.
Beth-haccerem, " the house of the vine" (Jer. vi, 1 ; Nell, iii, 14), and Abel-ceramSm, " the plain of the vine- yards," took their respective names from their vicinity to vineyards. Gophua (now Jifna). a few miles north of Jerusalem, is stated by Eusebius {Ononiast. ^dpay£, f3('iTpvoi;) to have derived its name from its vines. But see OniNi.
In Italy vines are trained round the trunk of the elm and other trees; in France and (iermany for a lowlier growth stakes or wooden props are provided. In Pal- estine, however, the vine is usualh' planted on the side of a terraced hill, and the aged branches are allowed to trail along the ground, the fruit- bearing shoots being raised on forked sticks. This latter mode of cultiva- tion appears to be alluded to by Ezekiel (xix, 11, 12): " her strong rods were broken and withered." Dr. Robin- son, who has given us much information on the vines of Palestine, thus speaks of the maimer in which he saw them trained near Hebron : " They are planted singly in rows, eight or ten feet apart in each direction. The stock issuttered to grow up large to the height of six or eight feet, and is then fastened in a sloping position to a strong stake, and the shoots suffered to grow and ex- tend from one plant to another, forming a line of fes- toons. Sometimes two rows are made to slant towards each other, and thus form by their shoots a sort of arch. These shoots are pruned away in autumn" (/-libl. Res. ii, 80,81). Sometimes the large stones are built into a rough wall, about three feet high, and the vines are trained over it, thus exposing a large surface to the sun, and ripening magnificent clusters ( Tris- tram, Travels, p. 606). In the courts of many houses vines are trained over a trellis, ~ or framework of wood, and in the hot weather