Chief of the experiments which Legaux's partial success in vine-growing
stimulated was carried on in Kentucky by _The Kentucky Vineyard Society_
of which John James Dufour, a Swiss, was leader.[26] It was to this
Company that Legaux had sent the fifteen hundred cuttings mentioned
above as going to Kentucky. Before founding his grape colony, Dufour had
made a tour of inspection of all the vineyards that he could hear of in
what then constituted the United States. His account of what he saw,
given in his book _The Vine Dresser's Guide_, is the most accurate
statement we have of grape-growing in America at the beginning of the
nineteenth century.
Dufour's account, pages 18-24, runs as follows: "I went to see all the
vines growing that I could hear of, even as far as Kaskaskia, on the
borders of the Mississippi; because I was told, by an inhabitant of that
town, whom I met with at Philadelphia, that the Jesuits had there a very
successful vineyard, when that country belonged to the French, and were
afterwards ordered by the French government to destroy it, for fear the
culture of the grapes should spread in America and hurt the wine trade
of France. As I had seen but discouraging plantations of vines on that
side of the Alleghany, and as the object of my journey to America, was
purposely to learn what could be done in that line of business; I was
desirous to see if the west would afford more encouragement. I resolved
therefore on a visit to see if any remains of the Jesuits' vines were
still in being, and what sort of grapes they were; supposing very
naturally, that if they had succeeded as well as tradition reported,
some of them might possibly be found in some of the gardens there. But I
found only the spot where that vineyard had been planted, in a well
selected place, on the side of a hill to the north east of the town,
under a cliff. No good grapes, however were found either there, or in
any of the gardens of the country. * * * In my journeying down the Ohio,
I found at Marietta a Frenchman, who was making several barrels of wine
every year, out of grapes that were growing wild, and abundantly, on the
heads of the Islands of the Ohio River, known by the name of Sand
grapes, because they grow best on the gravels; a few plants of which are
now growing in one of our vineyards, given by the Harmonites under the
name of red juice. * * * The various attempts at vineyards that I heard
of, which I went to see, at Monticello, President Jefferson's place;
which, in 1799, I perceived had been abandoned, or left without any care
for three or four years before, which proved evidently, that it had not
been profitable: At Spring Mill, on the Schuylkill, near Philadelphia,
planted by Mr. LEGAUX, a French gentleman, and afterwards supported by a
wealthy Society formed by subscription, at that City, for the express
purpose of trying to extend the culture of the grape. I saw that
vineyard in 1796, 1799 and 1806. On the estate of Mr. CAROLL, of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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