THE GRAPES OF NEW YORK. 55 



wine and at this time wine was not made in large quantities in the Keuka 

 district. 



There had been experimental vineyards about New York City and 

 along the Hudson for a century before the time of which we are writing, 

 but these, as we have seen, being largely of foreign grapes, came to naught. 

 Probably native grapes were first planted there in a commercial way by 

 the French Huguenots who settled in Ulster and Orange Counties. At any 

 rate there is record of a vineyard planted by a Frenchman, John Jacques, 

 near Washingtonville in 1837. The varieties were Isabella and Catawba 

 and there were, all told, about half an acre. It is interesting to note that 

 this vineyard is still producing grapes and that some of the vines are as 

 vigorous as in their first maturity. Wine-making as an industrv has existed 

 in this region since the vineyard of 1837 came into bearing but it was not 

 until several years later that table grapes were grown for the market. In 

 1859 there must have been two or three hundred acres of grapes in com- 

 mercial vineyards in the country adjacent to the Hudson. 



Adding five hundred acres from New York to the 6500 reported for the 

 United States by Erskine in 1859 we have 7000 acres for the whole country — ■ 

 a small estimate, for several other states known to have considerable acre- 

 ages of commercial vineyards were not taken into account in Erskine's 

 survey. 



Before passing to a further consideration of grape statistics we must 

 note two important events for American viticulture which took place just 

 previous to the survey which we have been discussing. One of these brought 

 about a revolution, — almost brought into existence commercial grape- 

 growing; the other stimulated and laid the foundation of grape-breeding in 

 this country. The first was the introduction of the Concord grape; the 

 second was the production of hyl)rids between the European and the native 

 grapes. 



The history of the Concord will be found in tlie discussion of that 

 variety in the chapter on Varieties of American Grapes. Its advent is noted 

 here that it may be set as a landmark in the development of American 

 grape-culture. It is first recorded in 1852 by the Massachusetts Horticul- 

 tural Society as a seedling exhibited by E. W. Bull. The qualities that 

 have made the Concord so important in commercial grape-growing are: 



