OF BEGINNINGS 
9 
nexte season.” And then comes the paragraph deal¬ 
ing with the grape, set apart and thus emphasized. 
“Moreover, be it enacted by this present Assembly 
that every householder do yearly plante and maintaine 
ten vines untill thay have attained to the art and ex¬ 
perience of dressing a Vineyard either by their own 
industry or by the Instruction of some Vigneron.” 
The penalty for failure to do this is left to the discre¬ 
tion of the Governour and Counsell of Estate, and is 
not limited therefore to the “censure” of these august 
gentlemen. 
Four years later the Defence of the Virginia Char¬ 
ter states that there are “divers vineyards planted in 
the country whereof some contain ten thousand plants.” 
And “for silk, the country is full of mulberry trees 
of the best kind, and general order taken for the plant¬ 
ing of them abundantly in all places inhabited.” 
Apropos of this enthusiasm for mulberries, I may say 
in passing that there are only two species of Mulberry 
native to this continent. The Mulberry introduced 
by these early colonists—referred to as “the best kind” 
—in the hope of developing the silk industry here, was 
probably the Mulberry of China —Morus alba. 
With everything in Nature favoring them, the Cav¬ 
aliers were thus well established on their broad plan¬ 
tations by the time the Puritans began their struggle 
for existence here, against the odds of a far less cordial 
