We have seen that for some years previous to Johnson and McMahon there had been efforts to grow _Vitis vinifera_ in many widely separated regions. The futility of attempting to grow the Old World grape became apparent, so far as we may judge from written accounts, to but few men, however. To Dr. James Mease must be accorded the honor of first perceiving and setting forth in print the fact that American viticulture must rise from native grapes. Possibly the second man to voice the same sentiment was Thomas Jefferson, ever alert for the agricultural welfare of the country, who wrote to John Adlum in 1809, speaking of the Alexander grape:[67] "I think it will be well to push the culture of that grape without losing time and efforts in search of foreign vines, which it will take centuries to adapt to our soil and climate." It is probable that Jefferson, who it appears was a frequent correspondent of Adlum's, stimulated the latter to the publication of a book on grape culture. This appeared in 1823, "for the purpose", as the author says in his preface, "of diffusing some practical and useful information throughout the country on the best method of cultivating the native grape and of making Wine". Thus Adlum's[68] _Cultivation of the Vine_ was the first American book on American grapes. The author's intentions, as indicated in his preface, quoted above, were good; but his book, as an exposition on native grape culture, is a failure. The work is concerned for most part with wine-making and his cultural directions are taken almost wholly, such as they are, from European books. In the last four pages of the treatise he describes twenty-two varieties of grapes of which perhaps a dozen are native sorts. In this edition the Catawba is described as the Tokay but in a second edition, published in 1828, the name is changed from Tokay to Catawba. Adlum was one of the first to call attention to the Catawba and was at the time its chief distributor. He advocated in his book, and in the papers of the time, the establishment of an experimental farm[69] upon which could be grown "cuttings of the different species of the native Vine to be found in the United States, to ascertain their growth, soil, and produce, and to exhibit to the Nation, a new source of wealth, which has been too long neglected."