1 8 THE GRAPES OF NEW YORK. 



yard, when that country belonged to the French, and were afterwards 

 ordered by the French government to destroy it, for fear the culture of the 

 grapes should spread in America and hurt the wine trade of France. As I 

 had seen but discouraging plantations of vines on that side of the Alleghany, 

 and as the object of my journey to America, was purposely to learn what 

 could be done in that line of business ; I was desirous to see if the west would 

 afford more encouragement. I resolved therefore on a visit to see if any 

 remains of the Jesuits' vines were still in being, and what sort of grapes 

 they were; supposing very naturally, that if they had succeeded as well as 

 tradition reported, some of them might possibly be found in some of the 

 gardens there. But I found only the spot where that vineyard had been 

 planted, in a well selected place, on the side of a hill to the north east of 

 the town, under a cliff. No good grapes, however were found either 

 there, or in any of the gardens of the country. * * * In my 

 journeying down the Ohio, I found at Marietta a Frenchman, who was 

 making several barrels of wine everv year, out of grapes that were growing 

 wild, and abundantly, on the heads of the Islands of the Ohio River, known 

 by the name of Sand grapes, because they grow best on the gravels; a 

 few plants of which are now growing in one of our vineyards, given by 

 the Harmonites under the name of red juice. * * * The various 

 attempts at vineyards that I heard of, which I went to see, at Monti- 

 cello, President Jefferson's place; which, in 1799, I perceived had been 

 abandoned, or left without any care for three or four years before, which 

 proved evidently, that it had not been profitable: At Spring Mill, on the 

 Schuylkill, near Philadelphia, planted by Mr. Legaux, a French gentleman, 

 and afterwards supported by a wealthy Society formed by subscription at 

 that City, for the express purpose of trying to extend the culture of the 

 grape. I saw that vineyard in 1796, 1799 and 1806. On the estate of Mr. 

 Caroll, of CaroUton, below Baltimore, in Maryland; whither I went on 

 purpose from Philadelphia in 1796, there was a small vineyard kept by a 

 French vinedresser, and where they had tried a few sorts of the indigenous 

 grapes. At the Southern Liberties of Philadelphia, I saw in 1806, a planta- 

 tion of a large assortment of the best species of French grapes; which a 

 French vinedresser had brought over the Atlantic. They were at their 2d 

 or 3d years: they had not been attacked by the sickness: their nurse was 



