THE RAISIN INDUSTRY. 23 



supposed origin from the town of Corinth, and of their having been 

 mentioned by Pliny in the year 75 A. D. The currants must thus 

 very early have been of considerable importance as a commercial 

 product, although the great increase in their production is of more 

 recent date. The crusades which brought the nations of the North 

 in contact with the Orient and the South also spread the knowledge 

 of the Grecian currants to the distant parts of Europe. After the 

 Latin conquest, currants became a commercial article, and we have 

 every reason to suppose that, as early as the beginning of the thirteenth 

 century, currants had reached the English shores, and that in the 

 middle of the fourteenth century the Knglish trade was fully estab- 

 lished. Raysins of Corauntz were quoted in 1374 at two pence and 

 three farthings per pound, equivalent to one dollar and twenty-five 

 cents in our money at its present value. In 1513, the first Knglish 

 consul was appointed at Chios, and from that time on a direct traffic 

 was maintained between the Grecian Islands and the North of Europe. 

 In 1582, Hakluyt writes that efforts had been made to introduce the 

 coren plant or vine into England, but that the same failed to fruit. 

 The first introduction of the Zante vine into England is supposed by 

 Anderson to have taken place in 1533. In the end of the sixteenth 

 century, the currant traders were in full intercourse with the Venetians 

 on the Island of Zante, and the Turks on the mainland or Morea. In 

 1581, the Levant Company received a monopoly in the trade of the 

 small fruits called currants, being the raysins of Corinth. According 

 to Wheler, who traveled in the Ionian Islands in 1675, Zante pro- 

 duced enough currants to charge five or six vessels, Cephalonia three 

 or four, and Nathaligo, Missolonghi and Patros one each. Some few 

 were also brought down from the Gulf of Lepanto. 



As to the native home of the currants, opinions have considerably 

 differed. Some have supposed Zante or Naxos to have been the origi- 

 nal home of this grape; while others, with better reasons, have held 

 that their original home was Corinth. Beaujour, who was French 

 consul in Greece in 1790, says: "The fruit is not indigenous to Morea. 

 No writer before the sixteenth century mentions it, and the result of 

 my inquiries is that the currant came from Naxos into the Morea about 

 1580. It is true no such plant now exists in Naxos, but it has simi- 

 larly disappeared from the territory of Corinth, though it is very certain 

 it was cultivated there in former days, when the Venetians held the 

 country." This account does not agree with the statements of Comte 

 Grasset St. Sauveur, consul to the Ionian Islands from France in 1781. 

 He states, in his History of the Ionian Islands, that * * the first plants 

 were imported from Corinth to Zante about two centuries ago ' ' (or about 

 1580). There are no exact records of the time or of the introducer; 

 but the date is fixed by the regulations of the Senate of Venice relating 

 to custom duties. It is likely this introduction took place not much 

 before 1553, and was caused by the hostility of the Turks, who then 

 held Morea, to the merchant vessels of the other nations of Europe, 

 who in fact forbade them any entrance to the Gulf of Corinth, the 

 principal export place for the currants. Thus John Locke, who in 

 I 553 describes Zante, speaks of other products of the island, but not 

 of currants. 



