OF BEGINNINGS 
7 
of Barlow’s to gardens. In his “Description of New 
England” written in 1614, Captain John Smith tells 
of “sandy cliffes and cliffes of rock, both which we 
saw so planted with Gardens and Cornefields.” Fur¬ 
ther on, discoursing on the fertility of the soil, he says, 
“the winter is more colde in those parts wee have yet 
tryed nere the Sea side then we finde in the same height 
in Europe or Asia; Yet I made a Garden upon the 
top of a Rockie He in forty-three and a half, (latitude) 
foure leagues from the Main, in May, that grew so 
well, as it served us for sallets in June and July.” 
It is a fact universally to be noted that the cultiva¬ 
tion of fruit has first engaged the attention of every na¬ 
tion, as far back as any history of planting or working 
the soil, reaches. And of all fruits the grape has prob¬ 
ably been cultivated from the remotest time, for there 
is no literature in the world so old but proves, by its 
references to wine and the vineyard, the far greater age 
of these. Whether the Indian cultivated the grape, 
however, it is impossible to say. Probably not, for it 
grew in such abundance everywhere that there was no 
need to do more than gather the harvest. But they 
made a beverage of its juice; “while the grape lasteth 
they drink wine, and for want of casks to keep it, all 
the year after they drink water,” says Barlow: adding, 
with evident, naive pleasure in the recollection, “but 
it is sodden with ginger in it, and black cinnamon, 
