44 THE GRAPES OF NEW YORK. 



lished 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 desira- 

 bility of cultivating the above or other native sorts and confines his discus- 

 sion 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 iSi8, Mr. Thomas 

 Eichelberger, an enterprising German vine-grower, set out four acres of 

 grapes at this place and demonstrated that grapes could be grown success- 

 fully. The original vineyard was increased to about twenty acres and 

 other plantations were made until in 1S26 there were in the immediate 

 neighborhood of the borough of York one hundred and fift}' acres of vine- 

 yards. The account of these vineyards states further:' " 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 knov/n 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 



^American Farmer, 8:ii6. Baltimore, 1S26. 



