38 



THE GRAPES OF NEW YORK. 



Huguenots on Trent River, North Carolina, were cultivating European 

 grapes for wine-making.' Again he devotes several pages to the subject 

 of grape-growing in North Carolina.- He held that this "noble vegetable" 

 could be brought to the same perfection as in similar latitudes in Europe. 

 He states that Nathaniel Johnson had rejected all exotic vines and was 

 cultivating native sorts from which he was making excellent wine. Lawson 

 admonishes his readers that in a new country the settlers are under the neces- 

 sity of making use of the natural products of the soil of which, in Carolina, 

 the wild grape is most worthy of notice. He calls attention to the 

 fact that conditions are so different in America that European methods 

 of cultivation and care cannot be followed. Lastly he states that he had 

 planted seeds from the white grapes of Madeira from which he hoped to 

 raise a vineyard. Lawson is deserving of esteem as an energetic pioneer, 

 an accurate historian, as one of the first American naturalists, and as an 

 early vineyardist and horticulturist, for he experimented with other fruits 

 than the grape. Poor Lawson was burned to death by the Indians in the 

 prime of his career, cutting short e.Kperiments which might have materially 

 hastened the establishment of viticulture in America. 



The best account of the grapes of Virginia given in the later colonial 

 times is that of the historian Robert Beverly who is very explicit in his 

 description of the sorts growing wild in that State. He describes them as 

 follows:' "Grapes grow there [Virginia] in an incredible plenty, and variety; 

 some of which are ver\' sweet and pleasant to the taste, others rough and 

 harsh, and perhaps fitter for wine or brandy. I have seen great trees covered 

 with single vines, and those vines almost hid with the grapes. Of these 

 wild grapes, besides those large ones in the mountains, mentioned by Batt 

 in his discovery, I have observed four very different kinds, viz: 



"One of the sorts grows among the sand banks, upon the edges of 

 the low grounds, and islands next the bay, and sea. and also in the swamps 

 and breaches of the uplands. They grow thin in small bunches, and upon 

 very low vines. These are noble grapes; and though they are wild in the 

 woods, are as large as the Dutch gooseberry. One species of them is white, 



'Lawson, John. History of North Carolina: 141. 17 14. Reprint 1S60. 



^ lb.: 184-189. 



■Beverly, Robert. History of Virginia: 105-107. 173J. Reprint 1855. 



