24 THE EVOLUTION OF OUR NATIVE FRUITS 



of the jndigenous grapes." Near the Susquehanna 

 River, "not far from Middletown," was a neglected 

 vineyard which had been planted by a German, then 

 deceased, but which "had produced some wine." "At 

 the Southern Liberties of Philadelphia" Dufour saw a 

 vineyard in 1806 "of a large assortment of the best 

 species of French grapes." These were two and three 

 years planted, and where still healthy. At Kaskaskia, 

 on the Mississippi, he "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. A 

 thick forest was covering that spot, with a luxuriant 

 undergrowth, and of asparagus in the place where 

 the Jesuits had planted a bed of that vegetable." 



Dufour had found, in his journey down the Ohio, 

 a Frenchman at Marietta "who was making several 

 barrels of wine every year, out of grapes that were 

 growing wild, and abundantly, on the heads of the 

 Islands of the Ohio Eiver, known by the name of 

 Sand grapes, because they grow best on the gravels;" 

 and some of the wine made from the indigenous 

 grapes, when -four months old, was "like the wine 

 produced in the vicinity of Paris, in France, if not 

 better." The French settlers were convinced, how- 

 ever, that these grapes were not natives, but that 

 they were derived from the old French stock at Fort 

 Duquesne, for the French are said to have rooted up 

 their vines and thrown them into the river when the 

 English took the fort. There seems to have been the 

 strongest prejudice against the native grapes, a feel- 

 ing which Dufour shared, as we shall presently see. 



