EARLY EXPERIMENTS 13 



kernels ; " and the consignment is said to have included 

 pomegranates, currant plants, potatoes, and other 

 plants. The experiments with the vines seemed to 

 have come to nothing. Apparently the earliest plan- 

 tation of vines made on the New England coast, was 

 that at the mouth of the Piscataqua, on the borders 

 of the present state of Maine. This settlement was 

 made in 1623, but in 1630 Ambrose Gibbons, agent 

 of Mason and Gorges, settled there for the purpose 

 of founding a plantation, according to Slade, "to cul- 

 tivate the vine, discover mines, carry on the fisheries, 

 and trade with the natives." The planted vines failed, 

 but "them that grow naturally" were reported to have 

 been "very good of divers sorts." Probably every 

 important settlement in what is now New England 

 made an especial effort to grow the grape. There 

 are frequent references to such attempts in the early 

 records of the colonies. But all of them sooner or 

 later failed, and we shall not, therefore, pursue the 

 history further. 



Following the revoking of the Edict of Nantes, in 

 1685, by Louis XIV., many Huguenots sought refuge 

 in America. They settled chiefly in the Carolinas and 

 Georgia, and they brought with them the French love 

 for vine -culture and wine. They made many attempts 

 at vine -growing, but with no permanent success ; yet 

 the efforts kept the subject before the public mind, 

 and out of the failures there finally came a type of 

 grapes which persists to this day. The attempts were 

 repeated until well into the present century, however, 

 always with poor or indifferent success. About 1800, 

 one Magget is recorded to have obtained a grant of 

 money from the legislature of South Carolina for the 



