GRAPE CULTURE. The grape is be lieved to be the oldest of our cultivated fruits. Although some 1,500 varieties of grapes arc cultivated in Europe, they are practically all from a single species of the vine, known as the V itis vinifera. It is supposed to have been indigenous to Asia, where it was widely planted by different peoples centuries before it was in troduced into Europe. The Phoenicians have the credit of introducing the culture of the vine into Europe, first into the islands of the Grecian Archipelago and thence into Greece and Italy. The Romans carried vine culture, as a part of their civilization, wherever they settled. Thus, the vine had become well rooted in the south of France, in the neighborhood of Marseilles, at the beginning of the present era. Its culture during the next 200 years spread northward.
The native grapes of America are of entirely different types from the European kinds. The reason is that America raises grapes largely for table, while the European grapes are grown for making wine. American grapes are (1) the native varieties, which are indigenous to the country; and (2) the vinifera, or European kinds, which have been transplanted here, and thrive outdoors only on the Pacific Coast, being suitable for wine.
The vine and its cultivation engaged the at tention of early colonists, who were encouraged by the authorities and by the lawmakers. The Virginia assembly passed an act awarding pre miums to successful grape growers. When the second charter was granted to Rhode Island by Charles II in 1663 it contained an inducement to anyone who would plant a vineyard. Queen Christina in her instructions to John Printz, governor of New. Sweden, urged that vine growing be encouraged, and she instructed the governor to give the matter his personal atten tion.
Many of the immigrants to the different col onies came from noted vineyard districts of the Old World. It was only natural that they should try to introduce here the cultivation of those European vines with which they were most familiar. Thus, most of the early at tempts to establish vineyards for profit were by foreign or foreign-born settlers. In 1792 or 1793 Pierre Legaux, a Frenchman, interested a number of Philadelphia gentlemen in his enterprise, and a company was incorporated for the purpose of planting vines. A vineyard
was set out at Springmill, near Philadelphia, on the Schuylkill River. Foreign varieties of grapes were tried, but the experiment proved a failure.
About the same period (1790-93) a colony of Swiss grape growers from about Lake Geneva raised a fund of $10,000 and vineyards were planted in Jessamine County, Ky. Foreign varieties of grapes were tried, as had been done previously, but they all ran out and perished. Some years later, or about 1802, cer tain members of the Swiss colony removed to a place which they called New Switzerland (now Vevay, Ind.), on the Ohio River, 45 miles below Cincinnati. After failing with the best grapes imported from Switzerland, they tried a 'native variety called the °Cape," or the "Alexander') grape, and they then met with some success. This was largely due to the skill and experience of one member, John James Dufour, who joined the colony about 1805. He was an intelligent and observing vine-dresser, and afterward wrote a small treatise on grape culture and wine making— one of the first books on the subject published in th's country. Dufour produced wine, which had a fair sale in the West, but by 1835 or 1840 the wines of Vevay were little heard of, and a few years later the vineyards had nearly disappeared.
Such, in brief, were the leading attempts to introduce the cultivation of European grapes into the Eastern States, beginning in 1620; not one lasting success is recorded.
However, in 1851 the European grape was being grown with success about the different missions. The popular variety was a kind now known as the °Mission grape," which is ex tensively cultivated in southern California to this day. Other and better of almost all the leading varieties of European vines have been planted in that State, and their cultivation was a success from the beginning. Our native grapes grow there also, but they are not culti vated to any extent west of the Rocky Moun tains. Therefore, grape culture, especially in California, constitutes a separate chapter in American viticulture.