The grape is preeminently a North American plant. The genus Vitis is a large one, from thirty to fifty species being distinguished for the world; more than half of these are found on this continent. But few other plants in America, or in the world, inhabit such varied and such extended areas. In North America wild grapes abound on the warm, dry soils of New Brunswick and New England, about the Great Lakes in Canada and in the United States, and on the fertile river banks and in the valleys, rich woodlands and thickets of the eastern and southern States. They thrive in the dry woods, sandy sea-plains, and reef-keys of the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida where the vines of the Scuppernong often run more than a hundred feet over trees and shrubs, rioting in natural luxuriance. They flourish in the mountains and limestone hills of the Virginias, Tennessee and Kentucky. They are not so common in the West, yet found in almost all parts of Missouri and Arkansas, and from North Dakota through Kansas to southern Texas. Some wild grape is found in each of the Rocky Mountain States on plain or mountain, or in river chasm or dry canon. Several species are found in New Mexico, Arizona and California, where if they did not furnish the Spanish padres of Santa Fe and San Diego with fruit for wine, they suggested to them the planting of the first successful vineyards in the United States.

How did the grape spread from the Carolinas to California and from subtropical Mexico to the barren plains of Central Canada? Why divide into its manifold forms in the distribution? These questions are of practical import to the grape-grower and breeder who seeks to improve this fruit. The knowledge of the distribution and evolution of plants obtained in the last half century is so complete that these questions present few difficulties to the naturalist of today. In answering them no one would now hold that the numerous species and their sub-divisions were created separately for the regions in which they grow. All would take the ground that the different wild forms come from one ancestral species. We can waive the question as to what the original species was and as to where it first grew.

It is certain that grapes have not been distributed over North America by the hand of man. Probably they have been growing in the regions where they are now found since before the migration of the first savages. The agents of distribution have been natural ones, such as animals, birds, and lake and river currents. These have widened the area of a species to limits imposed by the hostile action of other plants and of animals and by geographical and physical conditions. As a species has encroached upon a new region, climate, soil, all of the conditions of environment, and the contest with other living things, have gradually modified its characters until in time it became so changed that it constituted a new species.

This descent from an original species with plants changed by environment has given us, in America, types of the wild grape as widely diverse as the regions they inhabit. The species found in the forests have developed long slender trunks and branches in their struggle to attain sunlight and air. At least two species are dwarf and shrubby, or infrequently climbing, two to six feet high, growing in dry sands, on rocky hills and mountains where roots must cling to rocks and penetrate into interstices. Still another form runs on the ground and over low bushes and is nearly evergreen, but in the herbarium can hardly be distinguished from a grape whose habit of growth is strikingly different. Some are long-lived, growing and bearing fruit for two or more centuries, while others reach no greater age than the ordinary shrub. Some have enormous stems, a foot or more in diameter, gnarled and picturesque and supporting a great canopy of branch and foliage,[38] while others are slender in stem and graceful, almost delicate, in character of vine. Not less remarkable than the differences in structure is the adaptability of the genus and some of the species to varied climatic conditions. Several of the wild grapes develop full size and display natural luxuriance and fruit-bearing qualities only in the Middle States, but may be found on dry, gravelly, wind-swept hills far to the north or in some hot and humid atmosphere of the South, as if to show indifference to wet or dry, heat or cold.

On the other hand there are many strong points of resemblance between the score or more of species. The organs and characters that do not bear the strain of changed environment, nor suffer in the perpetual warfare of nature, are much the same in all of the species of Vitis. Thus the structure of flowers, fruits and seeds is practically identical; all have naked-tipped tendrils; leaves and leaf-buds are very similar; and the various species usually hybridize freely. They are alike in the unlikeness of individual plants in any of the species; that is, all of the individuals of the genus are most variable and seeds taken from the same vine may produce plants quite unlike one another and quite unlike the parent.

These few facts regarding the evolution and distribution of American grapes lead to two important conclusions:

First, the species are so distributed throughout the United States, and individuals of the species grow in such abundance and luxuriance, as to suggest that we shall be able to improve and domesticate some one or more of them for all of the agricultural regions of the country. For it is proved that nearly all of the wild grapes have horticultural possibilities; and experience with many plants teaches that the boundaries of areas inhabited by the wild species of a given region coincide with those suited to the production of the domesticated plant in that region. It is not possible to tell where the grape-growing regions of the future are to be located; for species and individuals of this fruit are so common that no one can say where the grape is most at home in America.

Second, grapes are so variable and plastic in nature that, were it not known from experience, it could be assumed that they would yield readily to improvement. Besides being variable they hybridize freely and thus the plant-breeder can obtain desirable starting points. There are indications that some of the characters of grapes, at least, follow Mendel’s Law, and when once these have been determined, and the more important unit characters segregated and defined, it ought to be possible to combine and rearrange the characters of this fruit with some system and surely with more certainty than in the past.

This brief introduction leads us to the consideration of American grapes as cultivated plants. We have seen that it is an absolute impossibility to grow the Old World grape in eastern America. The fruit-growers in this great region are forced to plant the native grapes if any. It required two hundred years to establish this fact and it is less than a hundred years since grape-growers have generally acknowledged it as a fact. What was known of American grapes during the two hundred years wasted in attempting to grow the foreign Vinifera? And what has been accomplished in a century in ameliorating the native grapes?

The earliest European visitors to the Atlantic seaboard delighted in the wild grapes which they found everywhere and which reminded them of the Old World vineyards. Had they never seen such a fruit, the wild grapes could not long have escaped their attention; for the Indians knew and used them as they did potatoes, corn, and tobacco. In the narratives of the early voyages the grape is often in the lists of the resources and treasures of the new-found continent. Unfortunately it was not considered of great intrinsic value but only suggested to the explorers that the grape of the old home might be grown in the new home. Could a part of the exaggerated esteem given by the early European travelers and home-seekers to sassafras, ginseng and other such plants, have been bestowed upon the wild grapes which over-run the country, viticulture would have taken rank with the tobacco, lumber and the fish industries of the early settlers.

In the history of Vinland, or more properly Wineland, we find the first record of American grapes.[39] Biarni Heriulfsson, a Norseman, while making a voyage from Iceland to Greenland, 986 A. D., was driven by a storm to the coast of New England but did not touch land. Leif the Lucky, son of Eric the Red, about 1000 A. D., visited the country discovered by Biarni. One of Leif’s men, Tyrker, a German who “was born where there is no lack of either grapes or vines,” discovered grapes, whereupon Leif named the country “Wineland.” Other Norsemen in at least two expeditions visited Wineland, supposed to be a part of Rhode Island or Massachusetts, and for centuries after, the land discovered by Leif the Lucky was known in Icelandic literature as “Wineland the Good.” The first European to touch the New World christened it after its grapes.

The next record we have of American grapes comes from an Englishman, one Captain John Hawkins, who visited the Spanish settlements in Florida in 1565.[40] In his account of the colony he speaks of the wild grapes, comparing them, as did all the early explorers, with those of Europe. He indicates further that the Spaniards had discovered the value of the wild grape for domestic purposes and says that they had made twenty hogsheads of wine in a single season. It is almost certain that this grape was Vitis rotundifolia, best represented by the Scuppernong, which is commonly found on the Atlantic sea-coast from Maryland to Florida.

The first English colonists, like the Norsemen, declared the new-found world to be a natural vineyard. Amadas and Barlowe, sent out by Raleigh in 1584, described the land[41] “so full of grapes as the very beating and surge of the sea overflowed them, of which we found such plenty, as well there as in all places else, both on the sand and on the green soil, on the hills as on the plains, as well as on every little shrub as also climbing towards the top of high cedars, that I think in all the world the like abundance is not to be found.”

Ralph Lane, in a subsequent expedition of Raleigh’s, in a letter to Hakluyt, pronounced the grapes of Virginia to be larger than those of France, Spain or Italy.[42]

The region described by Amadas and Barlowe is that of the two great sounds, Albemarle and Pamlico, on the coast of North Carolina and more specifically Roanoke Island. It was to this place that Raleigh sent his expeditions, with one of which Amadas and Barlowe were connected, and established the earliest colony of Englishmen in the New World. The first home of Europeans in America was in Vinland, named for its grapes. The first home of Englishmen was on Roanoke Island, “so full of grapes that the very sea overflowed them.”

A few years later, Thomas Hariot, in a description of Virginia which must have done much to decide the English as to the advisability of establishing colonies in America, gave a detailed account of the merchantable commodities the new countries afforded. Among these he mentions grapes which he describes as being of two kinds that the soil yields naturally and abundantly, of which one was small and sour and of the bigness of the European grape while the other was of greater size and more sweet and luscious. Hariot concludes his description with the statement that “when they are planted and husbanded as they ought, a principal commodity of wine may be raised.”[43]

Of the later accounts given of grapes in Virginia and the Carolinas by the colonizers and adventurers of the seventeenth century there are so many that it is impossible to present all and difficult to sort out those most apt. A few more may be given:

Captain John Smith, soldier, colonizer and Virginian planter, writing in 1606 describes two sorts of wild grapes. He says:[44] “Of vines great abundance in many parts that climbe the toppes of highest trees in some places, but these beare but few grapes. Except by the rivers and savage habitations, where they are not overshadowed from the sunne, they are covered with fruit, though never pruined nor manured. Of those hedge grapes we made neere twentie gallons of wine, which was like our French Brittish wine, but certainely they would prove good were they well manured. There is another sort of grape neere as great as a Cherry, this they [Indians] call Messamins, they be fatte, and the juyce thicke. Neither doth the taste so well please when they are made in wine.”

It is worthy of remark that the first English colonist in the New World noticed that the vines in the vicinity of the Indian habitations and along the edges of creeks, rivers and swamps, where not overshadowed from the sun, were covered with fruit. The statement of this fact, coupled with the one following, “but certainely they would prove good were they well manured,” indicates that the possibility of successful cultivation of the wild grapes was considered at this early time. In fact, as we have seen, Lord Delaware at once sought to test the virtues of the native grapes by bringing over a number of French vine-dressers, who not only planted cuttings imported from Europe but proceeded at once to transplant the vine of the country.[45] A few years later, according to Bruce, Sir Thomas Dale “established a vineyard at Henrico not long after the foundation of that settlement, covering an area of three acres, in which he planted the vines of the native grape for the purpose of testing their adaptability to the production of wines that could be substituted for those of France and Spain.”[46]

Francis Maguel, who visited Virginia in 1609, stated that the wine made in the colony reminded him of the Alicante which he had drunk in Spain.[47]

The first Secretary of the Colony, William Strachey, was somewhat fulsome in his praise of the new found fruit. Writing[48] in 1610, he says that the vines burden every bush, climb to the top of the highest trees and are always full of clusters of grapes though never pruned or manured. He declares that the grapes are as good as those to be found between Paris and Amiens and that the wine made by the settlers from the wild grapes was equal to French or British wine, “being strong and headdy.” In closing his description he states that by art and industry skillful vignerons could bring viticulture unto such perfection as will enable the colony to export wine to the mother country.

An anonymous writer in 1649, who sets out to give a “full and true relation of the present state of the plantations, their health, peace and plenty,” etc., etc., thought that the colony needed only some one to set an example to the ordinary settlers to induce them to grow grapes. This writer says: “Vines in abundance and variety, do grow naturally over all the land, but by the birds and beasts, most devoured before they come to perfection and ripenesse; but this testifies and declares, That the Ground, and the Climate is most proper, and the Commodity of Wine is not a contemptible Merchandize; but some men of worth and estate must give in these things example to the inferior inhabitants and ordinary sort of men, to shew them the gain and Commodity by it, which they will not believe but by experience before their faces:”[49]

A hundred years later, according to Beverly, the grape was scarcely cultivated, the masses of the people being content with the fruit of the wild vines which grew everywhere in the forest. So far as is known there were in Beverly’s time, 1722, no named varieties and there had been no efforts to improve the wild grapes in any way. There are no indications from the early writings to show that the Virginian settlers even knew how to propagate grapes. The reason for this neglect is largely to be sought for in the last sentence in the subjoined footnote from Beverly.[50] This neglect was in spite of the fact that from the first the settlers had noted that when the vines were open to the sun the crop was improved.

In the northern colonies, as in Virginia, about the first object to attract the attention of the early settlers was the wild grape. The grape, possibly more than any other natural product of the soil, is mentioned in the preliminary surveys of the Atlantic Coast as offering reasonable ground for the expectation that American soils would furnish all of the supplies necessary for the sustenance and comfort of settlers. A few statements from the early explorers and visitors in the Middle and New England States will serve to show how plentiful wild grapes were in these regions and the estimation in which they were held.

In Delaware, Beauchamp Plantagenet, describing a “Uvedale under Websneck,” in his account of New Albion, says that it contains “four sorts of excellent great vines running on mulberry and sassafras trees; there are four sorts of grapes, the first is the Thoulouse Muscat, sweet scented, the second the great fox and thick grape, after five months reaped being boiled and salted, and well fined, it is a strong red Xeres; the third a light Claret, the fourth a white grape creeps on the land, maketh a pure gold color white wine; Tenis Pale, the Frenchman, of these four made eight sorts of excellent wine, and of the Muscat acute boiled that the second draught will fox[51] a reasonable pate four months old: and here may be gathered and made two hundred ton in the vintage month, and replanted will mend.”

In New England the seventeenth century notices of the wild grape are even more numerous than similar records to the south but they are briefer and the northern observer did not recognize the possibilities of their domestic use and of bringing them under cultivation. This seeming neglect of the Puritans was not because the northern wild grapes are inferior to those of Virginia and the Carolinas, but more likely because of the social and industrial conditions of the colonists. The richer planters in the South had time for wine-making, the only purpose for which grapes were then grown, and for growing the grapes. The New Englanders had to struggle for the necessities of life.

It is significant, too, that the Southerners were fond of wine, and imported Madeira in large quantities. In New England, rum seems to have been preferred to wine, and as its manufacture from molasses is very simple and the latter was to be had from the West Indies at small cost, wine-making and grape-growing received small attention.

Yet nearly all of the writers on the resources of the New England Colonies mentioned grapes. Thus Governor Edward Winslow writing in 1621 of the country in which the Puritans had found a home says: “here are grapes, white and red, and very sweet and strong also.” We have seen that Winthrop was so impressed with the possibility of grape-growing in the new colony that he secured a grant of Governor’s Island in Boston Harbor upon which to plant a vineyard. In Thomas Morton’s New English Canaan is found the best account of the wild grapes of New England as the Puritan found them. He says:[52] “Vines, of this kinde of trees, there are that beare grapes of three colours, that is to say: white, black, and red.

“The Country is so apt for vines, that (but for the fire at the spring of the yeare) the vines would so over spreade the land, that one should not be able to passe for them, the fruit is as bigg of some as a musket bullet, and is excellent in taste.”

John Josselyn in New England’s Rarities, speaks of a grape having “a taste of gunpowder,” a short but vivid description of Vitis labrusca.[53] William Wood in New England’s Prospect gives still another account of the grapes of New England.[54]

The references given are sufficient to show that the value of the native grapes as a source of food and for wine was recognized by the first settlers in practically all of the colonies and that their possibilities as cultivated plants were considered by some of the colonizers. Yet for two hundred years there were no zealous efforts made to cultivate American grapes. Indeed, there are far fewer references to the wild grapes of the country in the eighteenth century than in the seventeenth. The reasons for this neglect of a plant which could so easily have been improved by cultivation, and this must have been apparent, are several. During all of this period the European grape was being tried and all hopes for viticulture were centered about it. Again, fruit of any kind was not a common article of diet with Americans until even so recently as a generation ago, and native grapes are dessert fruits, not wine fruits, and wine was the purpose for which all grapes were grown until the Catawba, the Concord and the Delaware whetted the appetites of fruit eaters for a dessert grape.

In the history of the amelioration of the American grapes we can skip the period from the early settlement of the country, a period represented by the above quotations, to the first years of the United States as a lapse of time in which there were no steps forward and in which even information concerning grapes was scarcely increased. The evolution of American grapes began with the opening of the nineteenth century, about the only accounts of grapes during the eighteenth century worthy of note being those of John Lawson, 1714; Robert Beverly, 1722; Col. Robert Bolling, 1765; Edward Antill, 1769; and Peter Legaux, 1800. All of these writers excepting Lawson were concerned with European grapes, and their relations to grape-growing were therefore discussed in the chapter on the Old World grape. It remains, however, to call attention to such statements as were made by them of American grapes.

John Lawson, a Scotch engineer, spent eight years, beginning in 1700, exploring and surveying North Carolina. A part of this time he was Surveyor General for the State and through natural desire and vocation he became familiar with the flora of North Carolina. In his history of that State, written in 1714, he gives an account of its natural resources in which the grapes of the region are several times described. He distinguishes six kinds, three of which he mentions as having been removed to the gardens. His fullest account runs as follows:[55]

“Among the natural fruits, the vine takes first place, of which I find six sorts, very well known. The first is the black bunch grapes which yield a crimson juice. These grow common and bear plentifully, they are of a good relish, though not large, yet well knit in the clusters. They have a thickish skin and large stone, which makes them not yield much juice. There is another sort of black grapes like the former in all respects, save that their juice is of a light flesh color, inclining to a white. I once saw a spontaneous white bunch grape in Carolina; but the cattle browzing on the sprouts thereof in the spring, it died. Of those which we call fox grapes, we have four sorts; two whereof are called summer grapes, because ripe in July; the other two winter fruits, because not ripe till September or October. The summer fox grapes grow not in clusters or great bunches, but are about five or six in a bunch, about the bigness of a damson or larger. The black sort are frequent, the white not so commonly found. They always grow in swamps and low, moist lands, running sometimes very high and being shady, and therefore proper for arbours. They afford the largest leaf I ever saw to my remembrance, the back of which is of a white horse flesh color. This fruit always ripens in the shade. I have transplanted them into my orchard and find they thrive well, if manured. A neighbor of mine has done the same; mine were by slips, his from the roots, which thrive to admiration, and bear fruit, though not so juicy as the European grape, but of a glutinous nature. However it is pleasant enough to eat.

“The other winter fox grapes are much of the same bigness. These refuse no ground, swampy or dry, but grow plentifully on the sand hills along the sea coast and elsewhere, and are great bearers. I have seen near twelve bushels upon one vine of the black sort. Some of these, when thoroughly ripe, have a very pretty vinous taste and eat very well, yet are glutinous. The white sort are clear and transparent, and indifferent small stones. Being removed by the slip or root, they thrive well in our gardens, and make pleasant shades.”

In another part of his history, Lawson says that in 1708 the French Huguenots on Trent River, North Carolina, were cultivating European grapes for wine-making.[56] Again he devotes several pages to the subject of grape-growing in North Carolina.[57] He held that this “noble vegetable” could be brought to the same perfection as in similar latitudes in Europe. He states that Nathaniel Johnson had rejected all exotic vines and was cultivating native sorts from which he was making excellent wine. Lawson admonishes his readers that in a new country the settlers are under the necessity of making use of the natural products of the soil of which, in Carolina, the wild grape is most worthy of notice. He calls attention to the fact that conditions are so different in America that European methods of cultivation and care cannot be followed. Lastly he states that he had planted seeds from the white grapes of Madeira from which he hoped to raise a vineyard. Lawson is deserving of esteem as an energetic pioneer, an accurate historian, as one of the first American naturalists, and as an early vineyardist and horticulturist, for he experimented with other fruits than the grape. Poor Lawson was burned to death by the Indians in the prime of his career, cutting short experiments which might have materially hastened the establishment of viticulture in America.

The best account of the grapes of Virginia given in the later colonial times is that of the historian Robert Beverly who is very explicit in his description of the sorts growing wild in that State. He describes them as follows:[58] “Grapes grow there [Virginia] in an incredible plenty, and variety; some of which are very sweet and pleasant to the taste, others rough and harsh, and perhaps fitter for wine or brandy. I have seen great trees covered with single vines, and those vines almost hid with the grapes. Of these wild grapes, besides those large ones in the mountains, mentioned by Batt in his discovery, I have observed four very different kinds, viz:

“One of the sorts grows among the sand banks, upon the edges of the low grounds, and islands next the bay, and sea, and also in the swamps and breaches of the uplands. They grow thin in small bunches, and upon very low vines. These are noble grapes; and though they are wild in the woods, are as large as the Dutch gooseberry. One species of them is white, others purple, blue and black, but all much alike in flavor; and some long, some round.

“A second kind is produced throughout the whole country, in the swamps and sides of hills. These also grow upon small vines, and in small bunches; but are themselves the largest grapes as big as the English bullace, and of a rank taste when ripe, resembling the smell of a fox, from whence they are called fox grapes. Both these sorts make admirable tarts, being of a fleshly substance, and perhaps, if rightly managed, might make good raisins.

“There are two species more, that are common to the whole country, some of which are black, and some blue on the outside, and some white. They grow upon vast, large vines, and bear very plentifully. The nice observer might, perhaps, distinguish them into several kinds, because they differ in color, size and relish; but I shall divide them only into two, viz: the early, and the late ripe. The early ripe common grape is much larger, sweeter, and better than the other. Of these some are quite black, and others blue, and some white or yellow; some also ripen three weeks, or a month before the other. The distance of their ripening, is from the latter end of August, to the latter end of October. The late ripe common grapes are less than any other, neither are they so pleasant to the taste. They hang commonly to the latter end of November, or till Christmas; all that I have seen of these are black. Of the former of these two sorts, the French refugees at the Monacan Town made a sort of claret, though they were gathered off of the wild vines in the woods. I was told by a very good judge who tasted it, that it was a pleasant, strong, and full-bodied wine. From which we may conclude, that if the wine was but tolerably good, when made of the wild grape, which is shaded by the woods from the sun, it would be much better, if produced of the same grape cultivated in a regular vineyard.”

Beverly could write with some authority on grapes for he was at that time much interested in the general question of grape-growing. Besides he was of an inquiring mind and seems to have been an untiring experimenter with the agricultural plants of his own and other lands. Charles Campbell in his introduction to the reprint of Beverly’s Virginia in 1855, gives the following account of a vineyard planted by the historian: “John Fontaine, son of a Huguenot refugee, having come over from England to Virginia, visited Robert Beverly, the author of this work, in the year 1715, at his residence, near the head of the Mattapony. Here he cultivated several varieties of the grape, native and French, in a vineyard of about three acres, situated upon the side of a hill, from which he made in that year four hundred gallons of wine. He went to very considerable expense in this enterprise, having constructed vaults of a wine-cellar. But Fontaine comparing his method with that used in Spain, deemed it erroneous, and that his vineyard was not rightly managed. The home-made wine Fontaine drank heartily of, and found it good, but he was satisfied by the flavor of it that Beverly did not understand how to make it properly. * * * He had laid a sort of wager with some of the neighboring planters, he giving them one guinea in hand, and they promising to pay him each ten guineas, if in seven years he should cultivate a vineyard that would yield at one vintage seven hundred gallons of wine. Beverly thereupon paid them down one hundred pounds, and Fontaine entertained no doubt but that in the next year he would win the thousand guineas.” And Beverly won the guineas.

Bolling in his Sketch of Vine Culture, 1765, mentions native grapes only as they indicate to him the adaptability of the country for the European sorts. Yet he suggests, and was probably the first to do so, the possibility of hybridization between American and the European species. He says: “Would it not be well for us to attempt the raising of new varieties, by marrying our native with foreign vines?” He then gives a plan whereby the vines may be planted as to “so interlock their branches as that they shall be completely blended together.” He says, “they will then feed from the blossoms of each other, and when the fruit is ripe, and if seeds are saved from it and sown in nurseries, * * * it is probable that we shall obtain other varieties better adapted to our climates and better for wine and table, than either of those kinds from which they sprung.” Beyond these brief mentions Bolling does not discuss native grapes, though he tells of the origin of the Bland grape, which we now know to be a native, and wrongly says that it grew from the seed of a European raisin.

Antill, in his Essay on the Cultivation of the Vine, a treatise discussed in the previous chapter, gives no varieties of native grapes, though he says that he had just entered upon a trial of them. His brief discussion of American vines is well worth quoting in full as showing the status of the species known to Antill just previous to the Revolutionary War:[59]

“The reason for my being silent about vines that are natives of America, is, that I know but little of them, having but just entered upon a trial of them, when my very ill state of health forbade me to proceed: From what little observation I have been able to make, I look upon them to be much more untractable than those of Europe, they will undergo a hard struggle indeed, before they will submit to a low and humble state, a state of abject slavery. They are very hardy and will stand a frame, for they brave the severest storms and winter blasts, they shrink not at snow, ice, hail or rain; the wine they will make, I imagine from the austerity of their taste, will be strong and masculine.

“The Fox-Grape, whose berries are large and round, is divided into three sorts, the white, the dark red and the black; the berries grow but thin upon the bunches, which are plain without shoulders. They delight most in a rich sandy lome, here they grow very large and the berries are sweetest, but they will grow in any grounds, wet or dry; those that grow on high dry grounds generally become white, and the colour alters to a dark red or black, according to the lowness and wetness of the ground; the situation I think must greatly affect the Wine, in strength, goodness and colour; the berries are generally ripe the beginning of September, and when fully ripe they soon fall away; thus much I have observed as they grow wild. What alteration they may undergo, or how much they may be improved by proper soils and due cultivation I cannot say.

“There is a small black Grape, a size bigger than the winter Grape, that is ripe in September; it is pleasant to eat, and makes a very pretty Wine, which I have drank of, it was four years old, and seemed to be the better for its age; the colour was amber, owing to the want of knowing how to extract the tincture; this Grape is seldom to be found; there is a Vine of them near John Taylor, Esq; at Middletown, Monmouth, and there are some of them in Mr. Livingston’s Vineyard at Piscataqua in New-Jersey. I think they are well worth propagating.

“The frost or winter Grape is known to every body, both the bunches and berries are small, and yield but little juice, but the richness of the Wine may make up for the smallness of the quantity; the taste of the Grape is austere till pretty hard frosts come, and then it takes a favourable turn and becomes very sweet and agreeable; this Vine shoots forth great numbers of slender branches, and might do very well for the south and southeast sides of a summer-house or close walk, if all the useless and barren branches were cut away.

“The Vines of America are fit for strong high espaliers, but if I mistake not, he must watch them narrowly, must take away every unnecessary and unprofitable branch, and trim them sharp and close, that means to keep them within bounds.”

Peter Legaux, in his patriotic address “To the People of the American States,”[60] wherein he admonishes them the culture of the vine is a national duty, was intent, as we have seen, on making the Old World grape grow in America—even if it were necessary to palm off an American sort as an Old World kind. He dismisses American grapes with even less attention than Antill gave them, his sole notice of them being embodied in the remarks that “with skillful management many of them would make good and wholesome wines” and that “if the native grapes of America are not the most eligible for vineyards, others are now within the reach of its inhabitants.” Indirectly he was, however, of great service in distributing the first native varieties, for as Rafinesque says, “by calling our Bland and Alexander grapes Madeira and Cape, he was instrumental in diffusing them among those who would not have noticed nor bought them if known as native vines.”

Following Legaux’s address of 1800 several treatises were written within a few years which give us a very clear idea of the status of the American grapes at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Chief of these, and probably in chronological order, is a paper in The Domestic Encyclopedia on the vine, written by James Mease, M. D.[61] It appears that Dr. Mease wrote in 1802 but the Encyclopedia did not appear until 1804.[62] Embodied in the article is an “interesting paper on the vines of the United States drawn up by William Bartram at the request of the editor.” Bartram’s paper was written in the spring of 1802. Mease’s discussion of the vine merits especial attention. While the best of Antill’s and Legaux’s observations are made use of, yet much is added to them and the paper is far more reasonable in every respect than those of either of the two previous writers, and is wholly lacking in the ostentatious modesty and circumlocution of Antill and the grandiloquence and self esteem of Legaux. It may justly be considered the first rational discussion of the culture of the grape in America.

Mease’s paper deserves attention for another reason. It contains the first public utterance condemning the culture of the Old World grape and recommending the cultivation of native grapes. He says: “From the experience, however, of the editor and his friends who have found much difficulty in naturalizing foreign vines, he recommends the cultivation of the native grapes of the United States, particularly the Vitis sylvestris, [Vitis aestivalis] or small blue or bunch grape; Bland’s, Tasker’s or Alexander’s, and the bull-grape of Carolina and Georgia.” It appears from the whole discussion by Mease and Bartram in this treatise that the only varieties of native grapes cultivated in 1804 were Alexander’s or Tasker’s grape, Bland’s grape, the Bull grape[63] of Carolina and Georgia, and the Raccoon grape.

Two years later, 1806, S. W. Johnson[64] and Bernard McMahon[65] published accounts of the cultivation of the vine. Johnson mentions three American varieties, the “Bull or Bullet grape, Bland’s grape and the Alexander’s or Tasker’s grape.” Johnson has nothing to say of the desirability of cultivating the above or other native sorts and confines his discussion largely to Legaux’s work with European grapes. McMahon advocates the introduction of foreign grapes and says almost nothing about the native species. As American varieties he mentions those given by Johnson, omitting the Bull grape.

One of the first, if not the first, extensive centers of native grape-growing in America was about York, Pennsylvania. In 1818, Mr. Thomas Eichelberger, an enterprising German vine-grower, set out four acres of grapes at this place and demonstrated that grapes could be grown successfully. The original vineyard was increased to about twenty acres and other plantations were made until in 1826 there were in the immediate neighborhood of the borough of York one hundred and fifty acres of vineyards. The account of these vineyards states further:[66] “In Adam and Westmoreland the culture of the vine is also attended to and one gentleman in Chester has a vineyard of thirty acres.” The grape most commonly grown in this region was known to the growers as “Black or York Madeira” and was supposed to have been introduced from the Island of Madeira. Prince pronounced the grape to be a native and the then commonly grown Alexander. Other popular sorts in this region were the York Claret, a native resembling Alexander; and York Lisbon, described as “having considerable affinity to Alexander but having a larger and more acid fruit.” Beside these there were several less well known sorts none of which is heard of now. Before the industry began to wane about York the Catawba and Isabella had taken the place of the first named sorts and these eventually succumbed for most part to grape diseases. In looking up the history of varieties of grapes for this work, a surprisingly large number have been traced back to this early center of the industry, so many that York and Lancaster Counties, Pennsylvania, must be counted among the starting places of American viticulture.

We have seen that for some years previous to Johnson and McMahon there had been efforts to grow Vitis vinifera in many widely separated regions. The futility of attempting to grow the Old World grape became apparent, so far as we may judge from written accounts, to but few men, however. To Dr. James Mease must be accorded the honor of first perceiving and setting forth in print the fact that American viticulture must rise from native grapes. Possibly the second man to voice the same sentiment was Thomas Jefferson, ever alert for the agricultural welfare of the country, who wrote to John Adlum in 1809, speaking of the Alexander grape:[67] “I think it will be well to push the culture of that grape without losing time and efforts in search of foreign vines, which it will take centuries to adapt to our soil and climate.” It is probable that Jefferson, who it appears was a frequent correspondent of Adlum’s, stimulated the latter to the publication of a book on grape culture. This appeared in 1823, “for the purpose”, as the author says in his preface, “of diffusing some practical and useful information throughout the country on the best method of cultivating the native grape and of making Wine”.

Thus Adlum’s[68] Cultivation of the Vine was the first American book on American grapes. The author’s intentions, as indicated in his preface, quoted above, were good; but his book, as an exposition on native grape culture, is a failure. The work is concerned for most part with wine-making and his cultural directions are taken almost wholly, such as they are, from European books. In the last four pages of the treatise he describes twenty-two varieties of grapes of which perhaps a dozen are native sorts. In this edition the Catawba is described as the Tokay but in a second edition, published in 1828, the name is changed from Tokay to Catawba. Adlum was one of the first to call attention to the Catawba and was at the time its chief distributor. He advocated in his book, and in the papers of the time, the establishment of an experimental farm[69] upon which could be grown “cuttings of the different species of the native Vine to be found in the United States, to ascertain their growth, soil, and produce, and to exhibit to the Nation, a new source of wealth, which has been too long neglected.”

Adlum did not write from theory alone for he was the owner and cultivator of vineyards near Georgetown, in the District of Columbia, where he grew both native and foreign grapes. The latter he finally discarded with the statement that the way to success in America “is to drop most kinds of foreign vines at once (except a few for the table) and seek for the best kinds of our largest native Grapes”. The best information from Adlum’s pen regarding native grapes and their culture is to be found in the American Farmer, published in Baltimore. He wrote mainly during the years 1824 to 1830. He was neither a clear nor an accurate writer and his imagination and enthusiasm had full sway at all times; yet, notwithstanding these faults, he must be counted as one of the geniuses of his day, as devoted to the welfare of the country, as having almost a prophetic vision, and as actuated by the best of motives. His struggle for a national experimental vineyard, the work of his pen, his dissemination of the Catawba and other grapes, and his vineyard experiments, give Adlum a high place among the improvers of American grapes.

John James Dufour gives the next glimpse of the beginnings of American viticulture in his Vine Dresser’s Guide published in Cincinnati in 1826. It is but a glimpse, however, for Dufour was a foreigner, and, as we have seen, came to America to grow the Old World grape. His efforts at grape-growing furnished the climax to the two centuries of failures in growing Vitis vinifera in America but did not benefit the new viticulture of the country greatly.[70] His only contribution of note was one made in spite of himself, namely the introduction of the Alexander, which he incorrectly called Cape, an American grape, as a commercial variety, Legaux having first brought it prominently to notice. Dufour would never admit that this variety, the only one to succeed in his vineyards in Kentucky and Indiana, was a native grape and says of it in the preface of his book: “I will also try to save the character of our Cape grapes from being made merely wild grapes, because some are now found in the woods; and, to put any one in the way to distinguish wild from tame grapes, I will give the description of the botanical characters of the blossom of both sorts.” In his text he fulfills the promise in the preface and devotes some pages to “save the character of our Cape grapes.”

Dufour’s visit of inspection of the vineyards of the country in 1799 has been noted in discussing the Old World grape. In this trip only foreign grapes interested him and he mentioned the wild species but to condemn them for cultivation. In his book published twenty-seven years later he shows no change of opinion and though at this time there were a number of meritorious native sorts he describes only European varieties. Dufour was a true foreigner and could find little of value in the New World that did not come from the Old World.

Rafinesque, writing in 1830, in his American Manual of the Grape Vines, gives an account of forty-one species of native grapes. Unfortunately his “species” are founded upon the slightest differences in vine or fruit and his observations were so poorly made that his botanical studies of the grape are now wholly discredited by botanists. He gives an account of the acreage in vineyards existing in the United States in 1825 and 1830. This is the earliest estimate of the vineyard acreage of the country and is therefore a landmark in American viticulture. It is as follows:[71] “In 1825 I collected an account of our principal vineyards and nurseries of vines. They were then only 60 of 1 to 20 acres each, altogether 600 acres. While now, in 1830, they amount to 200 of 3 to 40 acres, or nearly 5000 acres of vineyards. Thus having increased tenfold within 5 years, at which rate they promise to become a permanent and increasing cultivation.”

Viticulture took its place in the literature of American pomology with the advent of William Robert Prince’s A Treatise on the Vine. This work, magnificent compared with similar books of the time, introduces native grapes to the fruit-growers of America. Prince was the fourth proprietor of the same name of the Prince nurseries at Flushing, Long Island, and he with his predecessors had assiduously cultivated European varieties of grapes hoping to acclimatize them to American conditions. It is not a matter of wonder therefore, that much of his book is devoted to foreign grapes. His collection at Flushing consisted of over four hundred and fifty sorts and many of these he describes. In spite of his attraction to the foreign varieties, some of which had been tested in his nursery for two or three generations, Prince admitted the impossibility of growing them successfully and recommends to his readers and patrons the cultivation of native varieties. In the latter regard he says: “* * * after all my own experiments I have come to this conclusion, that to establish vineyards of the most profitable description, with a certainty of regular crops in localities north of the highlands in this state, native varieties alone should be selected; and the whole of the eastern states will of course be comprised in this remark.”

In his treatise, Prince described about seventy varieties of native grapes and several of the native species. Prince’s descriptions of these grapes are comprehensive and judging from the sorts described by him which we now have they are accurate. He grew seedlings from many of them. He showed a knowledge of the possibilities of hybridization of American species with Vitis vinifera. He solicited and obtained seeds and vines from all the settled portions of the Union. His grape correspondents in different parts of America and of the world must have numbered hundreds. Prince’s enthusiasm and perseverance in grape culture attached to him votaries in all fruit regions and to him more than to any other man was due that friendly interchange of knowledge and sentiment regarding grapes which characterized the half century after the appearance of his book. Such co-operation as was manifested in grape-growing in the second and third quarters of the nineteenth century has never been known in the culture of any other species of plant in this country and to it is largely due the progress of viticulture in leaps and bounds dating from Prince’s time.

With the close of the year 1830, we may consider viticulture a firmly established industry in America with the native grapes as a basis. Rafinesque’s estimate of the acreage at this time is given on a preceding page (47). It is worth while considering, very briefly, the types of grapes under cultivation at this stage of the industry, with some discussion of the origin of the leading varieties.

The first grape to become generally distributed as a commercial variety, was, as has been remarked before, the Alexander, or Cape. It came into prominence, through the deception of Legaux and the credulity of Dufour, as one of the Viniferas commonly grown at the Cape of Good Hope. It proved, however, to be an offshoot of the fox grape of the woods, Vitis labrusca, and had been grown, long before Legaux palmed it off as the Cape, under the names Alexander and Tasker’s, Alexander because of its having been grown by a gardener of this name and Tasker’s through its cultivation on a somewhat extensive scale by a Mr. Tasker in Maryland. Its history dates back to the years before the Revolutionary War and its origin was probably on the banks of the Schuylkill in Pennsylvania, hence another of its many synonyms, Schuylkill Muscadell.

Of the several other native varieties of the Labrusca type cultivated in 1830, two deserve attention for their intrinsic and historical value. The Catawba, of uncertain origin, as we shall see in its history, and the Isabella, a native of South Carolina, are both classed by most viticulturists as of the fox or Labrusca type. The two varieties were distributed among vine-growers at about the same time but the Catawba, because of its superior merits, soon took the lead and at the time of which we write was by far the most popular native grape. These, with the Alexander, may certainly be considered the forerunners of the cultivated grapes of the species to which they belong. The Catawba is still in several great grape regions of the country the standard commercial variety.

While varieties of Vitis labrusca were first cultivated in the North, it is probable that Vitis rotundifolia furnished the first domesticated varieties for the South, and likely, too, before the northern kinds were cultivated. Among these are the white and black Scuppernongs, or bullet grapes. Vitis rotundifolia, while it refuses to grow out of its habitat, runs riot from Maryland to Florida from seashore to mountains and in many diverse soils. The Scuppernongs[72] are natural offshoots of this species and are known in the South in legend, tradition and history. Undoubtedly they were cultivated for their fruit or as ornamentals in garden or vineyards from the earliest colonial times. It is certain that wine was made from the different wild types of Vitis rotundifolia from the settlement of Jamestown and if not brought under cultivation at an early day it was because the bountifulness of the wild vines obviated the necessity of domesticating them. It was of this grape that Amadas and Barlowe wrote in 1584 “in all the world the like abundance is not to be found.”

The word Scuppernong[73] is often used to designate a group of grapes rather than as a varietal name; for, there are the black Scuppernong, the white or green Scuppernong and the red Scuppernong, all much alike except in color of fruit and in a few minor characters of vine. Indeed, where Vitis rotundifolia grows wild, all of the forms are often included in the term Scuppernong. The species is often known, too, as the Muscadine or Southern Muscadine.

While the Labruscas were becoming established in the North and the Scuppernongs in the South, two other species, one northern and one southern, came into prominence with varieties which for wine-making at least were far superior to any other native sorts. The southern species is Vitis aestivalis, best represented then and now by Norton while the northern species is Vitis riparia and its variety under cultivation was the Clinton, which still remains one of the best representatives of the species.[74] It is strange that these four species were brought under cultivation only when wild forms of them, so striking in value that they still remain a hundred years later standard cultivated varieties, had been found. Vitis labrusca represented by Catawba, Vitis rotundifolia, by Scuppernong, Vitis aestivalis, by Norton, and Vitis riparia, by Clinton, are, after a century of improvement, with several hundred varieties, scarcely excelled by others of their species. Yet it is not so much the wonder that grape-breeders have so little improved upon these first varieties, as that our forefathers could allow them to grow comparatively neglected at their doors for two centuries while they wasted time in the attempt to grow a foreign grape that had been a failure from the very start.

Other species had also been tried at this time. Those indefatigable botanists and horticulturists, the Princes, had grown plants of what we now know as Vitis aestivalis lincecumii Munson, Vitis longii Prince, and Vitis cordifolia Michx., but without finding them of value. It is interesting to note that the first named species, the Post-oak grape, now promises to furnish valuable varieties for the South and that it has some characters desirable for the North if they can be combined with those of our northern species.

We have followed the grape through the settlement, colonization and first statehood days of the United States. We have seen that it had its part, and no mean one, in these dramatic periods. We have found that the wild grapes of the country, valued but uncultivated for two hundred years, became through mere transplanting from the woods into the vineyards, without the slow modifications which nearly all other plants have had to undergo, one of our most important fruits. The domestication of four species of American grapes has been briefly traced. The beginning of American viticulture has been set, somewhat arbitrarily, at 1830, the date of the publication of William Prince’s Treatise on the Vine. It remains now to discuss the economic progress of the industry we have seen launched.

The twenty years following 1830 comprise a period of expansion in grape-growing unmarked by the introduction of new types or of any new varieties of particular note. During this time a grape and wine industry of considerable magnitude was developed about Cincinnati, and the Ohio River became known as the Rhine of America—a title long since lost and now applied to the Keuka Lake region in New York. According to Buchanan,[75] there were 1550 acres of grapes in the Ohio Valley within twenty miles of Cincinnati; between forty and fifty acres near Hermann, Missouri; a few vineyards at Belleville, Illinois; and wine was being made from the Scuppernong grape in North and South Carolina. The inference from Buchanan is that the above plantations were for the production of wine; for he specifies that a few vineyards were in cultivation about New York, Philadelphia and Burlington, New Jersey, “but more with a view to supply the market with grapes, than to make wine.”

The last statement is significant for it indicates a change in the grape industry which really gave life to the viticulture of eastern America. Until about 1850, grapes were considered valuable and were cultivated only for wine-making. Previous to this time the literature on the grape was concerned more with wine-making than with cultivation, varieties or any other phase of the industry. The American grapes, with few exceptions, do not make good wines; there were few men in the country until within recent years who understood wine-making; and the American people do not take kindly to wines. It was not, therefore, possible to establish viticulture as an industry of any magnitude in eastern America when grapes were used for wine alone. It was only when the demand for table grapes was created and when transportation and market facilities permitted the supply of the demand that the industry took form and substance. It is a significant fact that in those regions in the eastern United States in which grape-growing has been founded and which are chiefly dependent on wine-making, the industry has not prospered or has flourished but temporarily.

We have had Rafinesque’s survey of the grape industry of the country in 1830 and Buchanan’s in 1850. The next record, and a far more complete one than either of the above, is found in a consular report made by E. M. Erskine, Secretary of the British Legation at Washington, to the British government in 1859. Mr. Erskine reported the acreage as follows:[76] “The banks of the River Ohio are studded with vineyards, between 1,500 and 2,000 acres being planted in the immediate vicinity of Cincinnati, with every prospect of a vast increase. At Cleveland, Ohio, on the southern shore of Lake Erie, there are 100 acres under vine culture; at Hermann, on the Missouri, 80 miles west of St. Louis, 150 or 200 acres are cultivated almost entirely by Germans; at Booneville, higher up the same river; at Belleville, on the ‘rolling prairies’ of Illinois; at Reading, in Pennsylvania; in Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, and generally, in at least twenty-two out of the thirty-two States now constituting the Union, vineyards of more or less promise and extent have been planted. * * *

“About 3,000 acres are cultivated as vineyards in the state of Ohio; 500 in Kentucky; 1,000 in Indiana; 500 in Missouri; 500 in Illinois; 100 in Georgia; 300 in North Carolina; 200 in South Carolina, with every prospect of a rapid increase in all. It is calculated that at least 2,000,000 gallons of wine are now raised in the United States, the average value of which may be taken at a dollar and a half the gallon.”

Grape-growing in New York was not considered worthy of mention by Erskine; and Buchanan nine years before reported only a few vineyards about New York City. In the regions of this State now almost wholly devoted to grape-growing a start had hardly been made in 1850. Yet there were some commercial vineyards at this time. Deacon Elijah Fay, the pioneer grape-grower in what is now the great Chautauqua region, planted the first vines in that district in 1818 and though grape-growing did not become of importance until three or four decades later yet this planting was the foundation upon which Deacon Fay built until, largely through his efforts and example and those of his children, grapes were grown everywhere about his home. It is doubtful, however, if there were a hundred acres of commercial vineyards in this region when Erskine made his report in 1859.

The first plantings made about Keuka Lake, now called the “Rhine of America”, were made by the Rev. William Bostwick at Hammondsport about 1830. He grew the Catawba and Isabella in a small way in his garden and for years was the only grape-grower in this part of New York. The commercial industry in this region was not started until 1853 when Andrew Reisinger, a German vintner, planted two acres of Isabellas and Catawbas at Harmonyville in the town of Pulteney. From this start viticulture in the Keuka region grew apace and there must have been four or five hundred acres of grapes planted when Erskine’s report was made in 1859. The fact that the region was not mentioned in this report may be accounted for by assuming that Erskine’s figures came from men engaged in making wine and at this time wine was not made in large quantities in the Keuka district.

There had been experimental vineyards about New York City and along the Hudson for a century before the time of which we are writing, but these, as we have seen, being largely of foreign grapes, came to naught. Probably native grapes were first planted there in a commercial way by the French Huguenots who settled in Ulster and Orange Counties. At any rate there is record of a vineyard planted by a Frenchman, John Jacques, near Washingtonville in 1837. The varieties were Isabella and Catawba and there were, all told, about half an acre. It is interesting to note that this vineyard is still producing grapes and that some of the vines are as vigorous as in their first maturity. Wine-making as an industry has existed in this region since the vineyard of 1837 came into bearing but it was not until several years later that table grapes were grown for the market. In 1859 there must have been two or three hundred acres of grapes in commercial vineyards in the country adjacent to the Hudson.

Adding five hundred acres from New York to the 6500 reported for the United States by Erskine in 1859 we have 7000 acres for the whole country—a small estimate, for several other states known to have considerable acreages of commercial vineyards were not taken into account in Erskine’s survey.

Before passing to a further consideration of grape statistics we must note two important events for American viticulture which took place just previous to the survey which we have been discussing. One of these brought about a revolution,—almost brought into existence commercial grape-growing; the other stimulated and laid the foundation of grape-breeding in this country. The first was the introduction of the Concord grape; the second was the production of hybrids between the European and the native grapes.

The history of the Concord will be found in the discussion of that variety in the chapter on Varieties of American Grapes. Its advent is noted here that it may be set as a landmark in the development of American grape-culture. It is first recorded in 1852 by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society as a seedling exhibited by E. W. Bull. The qualities that have made the Concord so important in commercial grape-growing are: Adaptability to varying sets of cultural conditions; fair shipping qualities; hardiness, productiveness and comparative immunity to fungi and insects. Its influence on the grape-growing of the country has been great, too, because from it have come a considerable number of the most valuable varieties of American grapes; as Worden, Moore Early, Pocklington, Martha and Cottage, all pure-bred seedlings and many cross-breds.

At a meeting of the American Pomological Society in Philadelphia in 1852, Dr. William W. Valk of Flushing, Long Island, exhibited several bunches of fruit from a seedling grape which he had grown from seeds of Black Hamburg produced from blossoms fertilized by Isabella.[77] The cross had been made in 1845, the first fruit was borne in 1850, and in 1851 specimens of it were examined by Downing who wrote, “There can be no doubt that this is the first genuine cross between the foreign grapes and our natives.”[78] The name of the variety, given by the originator, is Ada. Dr. Valk gave full accounts of his hybrid seedlings in the Horticulturist in 1851,[79] and in the Proceedings of the American Pomological Society in 1852.[80] He had previously written on the subject of hybridization, an interesting paper having been contributed to Hovey’s Magazine as early as 1845.[81] All available information shows that Valk’s is the first recorded hybrid between a native and the foreign grape. Yet the honor of such a production has usually been given to John Fisk Allen and to the grape, Allen’s Hybrid. For the conception of hybridity between species we can go back to the beginning of the cultivation of native grapes. Nearly thirty years before, Nuttall, the then famous botanist of Harvard University, had recommended such hybridization to American grape-growers.[82] Dufour mentions its possibilities in his Vine Dresser’s Guide.[83] In 1830, Prince discussed the whole matter and gave specific directions for hybridizing.[84] Indeed it is not unlikely that Prince, who says he grew ten thousand seedling plants “from an admixture under every variety of circumstance” grew the first such hybrid but we have nothing more definite as to this than the above statement.

In 1854, two years following its report of E. W. Bull’s “new seedling,” the Concord, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society showed in its exhibits another grape scarcely less worthy of note than the Concord. It was a hybrid between the Golden Chasselas and the Isabella produced by John Fisk Allen of Salem, Massachusetts. The new variety, the Allen’s Hybrid, mentioned in a preceding paragraph, had some intrinsic value but, of more importance, was the first introduction of its kind and started similar work which gave us many interesting and some valuable grapes.

Soon after the production of Allen’s Hybrid, E. S. Rogers of Salem, Massachusetts, and J. H. Ricketts of Newburgh, New York, began to give grape-growers varieties, the results of hybrids between Vitis vinifera and Vitis labrusca, so promising that for a time enthusiasm and speculation ran riot. Possibly at no other period has the interest in grape-growing been so keen as during the decade succeeding the introduction of these hybrids. It was the “golden era” for the grape propagators. One old nurseryman tells of carrying, during this boom, over a thousand dollars worth of rooted grape cuttings on his back from the nursery to the express office.

Though there was no panic among grape-growers as the result of speculation in hybrids, lovers of grapes the country over were greatly disappointed in the hybrid varieties. The fruit of many of the hybrids produced at this time is of superior quality and many of them are still grown by amateurs. But the vines of all first generation hybrids with Vinifera produced so far, lack hardiness, vigor and usually productiveness; they are susceptible to fungi and the phylloxera and many of them must be cross-pollinated to secure fruit. It is only when the blood of the native species greatly predominates, as in Delaware, Brighton and Diamond, that we have obtained sorts of commercial value through the admixture of foreign blood. But the interest aroused by Allen’s Hybrid still continues and in every part of the country may be found some man who hybridizes grapes with the hope that through well planned crosses or a lucky chance he may obtain the grape of grapes for America. Such attempts, stimulated by the hybrids of the fifties, have produced most of our American varieties.

The time between 1853, the date of the introduction of the Concord, and 1880 can be singled out as the period in which viticulture made its great growth in eastern America. The first limit is set because the Concord gave commercial grape-growing its initial impulse; the second limit is put at 1880, because at about that time grapes and wine from California began to compete with the eastern product to such an extent that prices fell and plantings were curtailed. Curtailment did not begin so early as this in New York but for the country at large the period of great expansion ended at about 1880. Fortunately we have an accurate statistical report of the condition of grape culture in the United States at this time. It is found in a work entitled, A Report Upon the Statistics of Grape Culture and Wine Production in the United States for 1880.[85] The report was compiled by Dr. William McMurtrie under the direction of the Commissioner of Agriculture.

Statistics are given for all of the states of the Union but a glance at the tables shows that by this time viticulture had become a specialized industry and that the areas devoted to it are more or less localized. The main areas, with their acreage for 1880, may be set forth as follows:

The Eastern region, comprising the States of New York and Pennsylvania, 14,590 acres.

The Middle region, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, 17,634 acres.

The Western region, Kansas and Missouri, 10,918 acres.

The Southern region, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia, 10,707 acres.

The Pacific region, California, Arizona and New Mexico, 35,518 acres.

Outside of these five regions there were in the United States, according to McMurtrie’s report, 12,316 acres. The total acreage for the United States in 1880 was 101,683 acres; the production of wine was 23,453,827 gallons. Unfortunately the total production of grapes is not given.

The following data are taken from the agricultural statistics of 1890 and show well the growth of viticulture in ten years though it is probable that the figures for 1880 were far too low. For the Eastern region, 51,000 acres; the Middle region, 42,633 acres; Western region, 17,306 acres; Southern region, 17,092 acres; Pacific region, 213,230 acres; for the territory outside of these divisions, 60,000 acres. Total area, 401,261 acres. Excluding the acreage of the Pacific division we have 188,031 acres for American grapes, assuming that all of the grapes grown on the Pacific Coast belong to Vitis vinifera.

It is interesting to note that in 1890 four-fifths of the grapes grown in the Eastern region, New York and Pennsylvania, were for table use and that in round numbers the production for this purpose amounted to 60,687 tons, requiring 5000 cars for transportation. Of grapes sold to wineries there were 15,172 tons. The varieties most largely grown were, in order named, Concord, Catawba, Delaware, and Niagara.

In the Middle region, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, about half the grapes grown were for table use and half for wine. By far the largest part of the grapes grown in this region was in Ohio, only about one-fourth of the total area being in the other two states. Between 1880 and 1890, viticulture scarcely held its own in this division. The decrease in the value of the product, competition with California, and, more particularly, ravages of insects and fungi were the causes of the falling off in planting. In some localities many vineyards were destroyed. The grapes sold for table use in this region amounted to 50,337 tons; to wineries, 14,456 tons.

So, too, in the Western region, Missouri and Kansas, but little progress was made during this ten years and for the same reasons, though the devastation in Missouri was caused chiefly by black-rot, which begun to be troublesome about 1875. The plantings in Missouri were largely for wine-making but in Kansas, which contained 5542 of the 17,306 acres for this region, about half of the crop was sold for table use. The grapes for table use in this region amounted to 30,794 tons, for wineries, 8290 tons.

The crop in the Southern region was about equally divided between wine and table grapes, the production in 1889 amounting to 1,165,832 gallons of wine and 14,539 tons of table grapes. The new plantings about equalled the acreage destroyed so that in total area the region was about holding its own. The chief market for the table grapes was in the North where they were sold early in the season at prices ranging from fifteen to twenty-five cents a pound.

We are concerned with the Pacific region in that its grape products, especially its wines, compete with those of eastern America. The growth of viticulture in the Pacific region in the decade we are discussing was little short of marvelous. In 1880 the acreage was 35,518 acres and in 1890, 213,230 acres—much greater than that of all the eastern regions, and the production of grapes being more than proportionately greater because of the greater productiveness of the vines. In this region 43,414 tons were sold for table grapes; 173,037 tons for wine; 41,166 tons were made into raisins and 23,252 tons used for dried grapes and other purposes than table grapes. The grand total for the region was 280,869 tons against 201,270 for all of eastern America. These figures give an idea of how formidable a competitor to eastern America California had become by 1890.

The census of 1900 shows but little increase in the total production of American grapes. A few figures will show the relative status of viticulture in the several regions in 1890 and 1900.

All of the regions we have been discussing, in which native grapes are grown, show a considerable falling off in production excepting the eastern one where the increase more than counterbalances the decrease in the other regions. The census report for 1900 shows three new states in the list of those producing grapes in commercial quantities. In the decade preceding, Michigan came up from an insignificant commercial production in 1890 to fifth rank in 1900 with 20,765 tons. Iowa and Oklahoma, states from which grapes were not reported in commercial quantities in 1890, produced 3701 and 3055 tons in 1900.

The shifting of grape areas indicated in the above paragraph was caused for most part by the grape diseases. The mildew and rot had ruined the grape industry in some of the older regions. The newer regions, as in Michigan, either enjoy comparative immunity from these troubles or the vineyards had not yet been attacked by them. In the case of the eastern region, New York and Pennsylvania, in the Chautauqua district, along the shores of Lake Erie in both states, where the production increased greatly during this decade, the vineyards are almost wholly immune to black-rot and are comparatively free from the mildew. In the other grape districts of this region these troubles are kept well in check by spraying.

The statistics given in the last few paragraphs show how greatly the grape-growing of eastern America has increased in the last half century. When one considers that at the time Erskine made his survey in 1859 there were but 6100 acres of grapes in the whole of this great region and that the culture of the European varieties was impossible, the total acreage grown in 1900, namely, 237,998 acres, makes an astounding figure. The results achieved seem all the greater when one considers that many of the best varieties now grown are the first and scarcely any are further removed than the second generation from wild plants. It is doubtful if any other cultivated plants have attained such importance as our native grapes in so short a time from the wild state. Yet their domestication has scarcely begun and few who grow them realize their possibilities.

THE WINE[86] AND GRAPE JUICE INDUSTRIES.

For over 200 years the grapes grown on this continent were almost wholly for wine-making. Yet the production of grapes was not sufficient to sustain a wine industry until the middle of the nineteenth century. When, with the introduction of new varieties of grapes and of better methods of growing them, the crop became sufficient in volume to support wine-making as an industry, its progress was checked by the enormous demand for table grapes, a demand not known in other countries, and by the cheapness of California wines. Furthermore the grapes most commonly cultivated, as the Concord, Worden and Niagara, do not make good wines; and knowledge and facilities for wine-making have not been such that the best wines could be made with varieties adapted for the purpose. All of these obstacles, to which we may add the fact that Americans are not a wine-drinking people, have prevented the building up of a wine industry as it exists in other grape-growing countries.

Although the United States stands second or third in the list of grape-producing countries it took lowest rank in wine production in 1900, falling below the small countries of Greece and Switzerland and such comparatively undeveloped countries as Chili and Argentine. Since by far the greater proportion of American wines come from the European grapes of the Pacific coast, it can be seen that wine made from American grapes is but a drop in the bucket in the world’s production. Reliable statistics of viticulture in the United States were not taken until 1890, but careful estimates, as we have seen, had been made by several men at different periods. These with the last two census reports show the output of wine in this country to be, in round numbers, as follows:

According to the American Wine Press,[87] the leading authority on wines in this country, the vintage of 1907 shows the following figures:

Subtracting the product of California from the total we have approximately the yield of wine from native grapes.

The manufacture of champagne[88] from native grapes is beginning to be an important adjunct to grape-growing and is of especial importance in New York which is the chief seat of the new industry. According to statistics from the Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Commerce and Labor,[89] more than two million bottles of genuine champagne wine are now produced annually in the United States. The figures compiled by the Bureau of Statistics show that the manufacture of champagne has quadrupled in ten years and that New York is by far the largest producer in this class of wines. It is held by the writers of the circular quoted above, and a careful study seems to have been made of the subject, that the American product compares favorably with that produced in other countries and that native champagnes are steadily improving with the increased experience of the American producer.

The largest manufacturers of champagne are located about Keuka Lake, Steuben County, New York. About 75 per ct. of the total output of the country is manufactured here. The process used is the French one of fermentation in the bottle and a number of distinct brands are made which in color, taste, sparkle and purity are rapidly approaching the high quality of the celebrated French champagnes. Considerable champagne is also made in Orange County in the southeastern part of New York, in Northern Ohio, in Missouri, and a small amount from European grapes in California.

The manufacture of unfermented grape juice[90] is becoming an industry in New York and promises to substantially increase the production of grapes. Grape juice is what its name purports, the juice of the grape undiluted, unsweetened and unfermented. A good grade of grape juice contains no preservatives, the necessity for such being removed in the process of making, the chief operation of which is sterilization by heat whereby the germs of fermentation are killed. The product is an ancient one, as the Greeks, Hebrews and Assyrians used it as new wine; but the process of making an unfermented grape juice that could be kept for an indefinite length of time is quite modern, and is the outcome of the discoveries of the last half century regarding the control of the agents of fermentation.

The grape juice industry of the country is largely confined to New York and to the Chautauqua grape belt in the western part of the State. About one-fifth of the grape crop of this region was turned into grape juice in 1907. The output of the Chautauqua region is as follows: 1904, 400,000 gallons; 1905, 600,000 gallons; 1906, 1,000,000 gallons; 1907, 1,500,000 gallons. The Concord is used almost entirely in the manufacture of grape juice though a few other dark-colored grapes make a very good product. There is but little demand for a light-colored grape juice but some is made. Since the European grape does not make a good unfermented juice there is no fear among growers of native grapes of competition from California or Europe. The rapid growth which this industry has made is most encouraging to grape-growers for it promises to furnish a permanent and profitable demand for good grapes.

Raisins[91] are not made from American grapes.[92] So far no varieties of the native species have been developed with sufficient sugar and solid contents to make a raisin acceptable to the markets. Even were there varieties from which raisins could be made, it is very doubtful if the climate of eastern America during picking and curing time is such that raisins could be made in competition with the product of California, now the greatest of the world’s raisin producing regions, where the climate is almost perfectly adapted to the industry.