THE DOMESTICATION OF THE GRAPE 5 



many of the kinds have horticultural possibiHties that it seems 

 certain that some grape can be domesticated in all of the agri- 

 cultural regions of the country, their natural plasticity indi- 

 cating, even if it were not known from experience, that all can 

 be domesticated. 



Leif the Lucky, the first European to visit America, if the 

 Icelandic records are true, christened the new land Wineland. 

 It has been supposed that this designation was given for the 

 grapes, but recent investigations show that the fruits were 

 probably mountain cranberries. Captain John Hawkins, who 

 visited the Spanish settlements in Florida in 1565, mentions 

 wild grapes among the resources of the New World. Amadas 

 and Barlowe, sent out by Raleigh in 1584, describe the coasts 

 of the Carolinas as, " so full of grapes that in all the world like 

 abundance cannot be found." Captain John Smith, writing 

 in 1606, describes the grapes of Virginia and recommends the 

 culture of the vine as an industry for the newly founded colony. 

 Few, indeed, are the explorers of the Atlantic seaboard who do 

 not mention grapes among the plants of the country. Yet 

 none saw intrinsic value in these wild vines. To the Europeans, 

 the grapes of the Old World alone were worth cultivating, 

 and the vines growing everywhere in America only suggested 

 that the grape they had known across the sea might be grown 

 in the new home. 



That American viticulture must depend on the native species 

 for its varieties began to be recognized at the beginning of the 

 nineteenth century, when several large companies engaged in 

 growing foreign grapes failed, and a meritorious native grape 

 made its appearance. The vine of promise was a variety 

 known as the Alexander. Thomas Jefferson, ever alert for 

 the agricultural welfare of the nation, writing in 1S09 to John 

 Adlum, one of the first experimenters with an American species, 

 voiced the sentiment of grape experimenters in speaking of 

 the Alexander : " I think it will be well to push the culture 



