32 



THE GRAPES OF XEW YORK. 



habitations, where they are not overshadowed from the sunne, they are 

 covered with fruit, though never pruined nor manured. Of those hedge 

 grapes we made neere twentie gallons of wine, which was like our French 

 Brittish wine, but certainely they would prove good were they well manured. 

 There is another sort of grape neere as great as a Cherry, this they 

 [Indians] call Messamins, they be fatte, and the juyce thicke. Neither 

 doth the taste so well please when they are made in wine." 



It is worthy of remark that the first English colonist in the New World 

 noticed that the vines in the vicinity of the Indian habitations and along 

 the edges of creeks, rivers and swamps, where not overshadowed from the 

 sun, were covered with fruit. The statement of this fact, coupled with the 

 one following, " but certainely they would prove good were they well 

 manured," indicates that the possibility of successful cultivation of the 

 wild grapes was considered at this early time. In fact, as we have seen, 

 Lord Delaware at once sought to test the virtues of the native grapes by 

 bringing over a number of French vine-dressers, who not only planted cut- 

 tings imported from Europe but proceeded at once to transplant the vine 

 of the country.' A few years later, according to Bruce, Sir Thomas Dale 

 " established a vineyard at Henrico not long after the foundation of that 

 settlement, covering an area of three acres, in which he planted the vines 

 of the native grape for the purpose of testing their adaptability to the pro- 

 duction of wines that could be substituted for those of France and Spain."' 



Francis Maguel, who visited Virginia in 1609, stated that the wine made 

 in the colony reminded him of the Alicante which he had drunk in Spain.' 



The first Secretary of the Colony, William Strachey, was somewhat 

 fulsome in his praise of the new found fruit. Writing* in 16 10, he says that 

 the vines burden every bush, climb to the top of the highest trees and are 

 alwa}'s full of clusters of grapes though never pruned or manured. He 

 declares that the grapes are as good as those to be found between Paris 

 and Amiens and that the wine made by the settlers from the wild grapes 

 was equal to French or British wine, " being strong and headdy." In 



' Works of Capt. John Smith, p. 502. 



- Bruce, Philip Ale.xander. Economic History of \'irginia in th<- S<~l'cntt\-nth Century, Vol. i:»i9. 

 1896. 



'Report of Francis Maguel, Spanish Archives, Brown's Genesis of the United States: 395. 1610. 

 * Tlic History of Travailc into Virginia: 120. 1610. printed 1S49. 



