42 THE GRAPES OF NEW YORK. 



and berries are small, and yield but little juice, but the richness of the Wine 

 may make up for the smaliness of the quantity; the taste of the Grape is 

 austere till pretty hard frosts come, and then it takes a favourable turn and 

 becomes very sweet and agreeable ; this Vine shoots forth great numbers of 

 slender branches, and might do very well for the south and southeast sides 

 of a summer-house or close walk, if all the useless and barren branches were 

 cut away. 



" The Vines of America are fit for strong high espaliers, but if I mistake 

 not, he must watch them narrowly, must take away every unnecessary and 

 unprofitable branch, and trim them sharp and close, that means to keep 

 them within bounds." 



Peter Legaux, in his patriotic address " To the People of the American 

 States,"' wherein he admonishes them the culture of the vine is a national 

 duty, was intent, as we have seen, on making the Old World grape grow in 

 America — even if it were necessary to palm off an American sort as an Old 

 World kind. He dismisses American grapes with even less attention than 

 Antill gave them, his sole notice of them being embodied in the remarks 

 that " with skillful management many of them would make good and whole- 

 some wines" and that "if the native grapes of America are not the most 

 eligible for vineyards, others are now within the reach of its inhabitants." 

 Indirectly he was, however, of great service in distributing the first native 

 varieties, for as Rafinesque says, "by calling our Bland and Alexander 

 grapes Madeira and Cape, he was instrumental in diffusing them among 

 those who would not have noticed nor bought them if known as native 

 vines." 



Following Legaux's address of 1800 several treatises were written within 

 a few years which give us a very clear idea of the status of the American 

 grapes at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Chief of these, and 

 probably in chronological order, is a paper in Tlie Dotiiestic Encyclopedia on 

 the vine, written by James Mease, M. D.- It appears that Dr. Mease wrote 



' The True American, Philadelphia, March 24, :8oo. 



' But little is known of Dr. James Mease other than that he was one of the editors of The Domestic 

 Encyclopedia, a Fellow of the American Philosophical Society and Vice-President of the PhilaJelphui 

 Af^ricullural Society. That he was a student of American grapes is shown in his letter of transmissal 

 of Bartram's paper to the Medical Repository in which he says: " It is my present intention to publish 

 the description of one species of vine every year in Latin and English, with a coloured plate, and I 



