THE GRAPES OF NEW YORK. 3^ 



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.' 



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 estab- 

 lishing 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." - 



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:^ "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 



' Hakluyt' s Voyages, 3 13 1 1 . 



2 Discourse of Thomas Hariot, Hakliiyt's Voyages, 3:326. 



^Smith's History of Virginia, 1:122 (1629) Reprint 1819. 



