30 THE GRAPES OF XEW YORK. 



making a voyage from Iceland to Greenland, 986 A. D., was driven by a 

 storm to the coast of New England but did not touch land. Leif the Lucky, 

 son of Eric the Red, about 1000 A. D., visited the country discovered by 

 Biarni. One of Leif's men, Tyrker, a German who "was bom where there 

 is no lack of either grapes or vines," discovered grapes, whereupon Leif 

 named the country " Wineland." Other Norsemen in at least two expedi- 

 tions visited Wineland, supposed to be a part of Rhode Island or Massa- 

 chusetts, and for centuries after, the land discovered by Leif the Lucky 

 was known in Icelandic literature as " Wineland the Good." The first 

 European to touch the New World christened it after its grapes. 



The next record we have of American grapes comes from an English- 

 man, one Captain John Hawkins, who visited the Spanish settlements in 

 Florida in 1565.' In his account of the colony he speaks of the wild grapes, 

 comparing them, as did all the early explorers, with those of Europe. He 

 indicates further that the Spaniards had discovered the value of the wild 

 grape for domestic purposes and says that they had made twenty hogsheads 

 of wine in a single season. It is alinost certain that this grape was Vitis 

 rotundifolia, best represented by the Scuppernong, which is commonly 

 found on the Atlantic sea-coast from Maryland to Florida. 



The first English colonists, like the Norsemen, declared the new-found 

 world to be a natural vineyard. Amadas and Barlowe, sent out by Raleigh 

 in 1584, described the land- " so full of grapes as the very beating and surge 

 of the sea overflowed them, of which we found such plenty, as well there as 

 in all places else, both on the sand and on the green soil, on the hills as on 



addressed him, and asked: ' Wherefore art thou so belated, foster-father mine, and astray from the 

 others ' In the beginning Tyrker spoke for some time in German, rolling his eyes, and grinning, 

 and they could not understand him; but after a time he addressed them in the Xorthem tongue: ' I 

 did not go much further [than you], and yet I have something of novelty to relate. I have found 

 vines and grapes.' ' Is this indeed true, foster-father?' said Leif. ' Of a certainty it is true ', quoth 

 he, ' for I was born where there is not lack of either grapes or vines." They slept the night through, 

 and on the morrow Leif said to his shipmates: ' We will now divide our labours, and each day will 

 either gather grapes or cut vines and fell trees, so as to obtain a cargo of these for my ship." They 

 acted upon this advice, and it is said, that their after-boat was filled with grapes. A cargo sufficient 

 for the ship was cut, and when the spring came, they made their ship ready, and sailed away; and 

 from its products Leif gave the land a name, and called it Wineland." Finding of Winchnd tlh- Good: 

 66. O.xford University Press, London, 1890. 



' Winsor, Justin. Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. III:6i. 

 ^ ^ First Voyage to Virginia, Hakluyt's Voyages, 3:301-306. 



