The History of Louisiana, Or of the Western Parts of Virginia and Carolina / Containing a Description of the Countries That Lie on Both Sides of the River Missisippi

by Le Page du Pratz

I shall now proceed to give an account of the fruit trees of this colony, and shall begin with the Vine, which is so common in Louisiana, that whatever way you walk from the sea coast for five hundred leagues northwards, you cannot proceed an hundred steps without meeting with one; but unless the vine-shoots should happen to grow in an exposed place, it cannot be expected that their fruit should ever come to perfect maturity. The trees to which they twine are so high, and so thick of leaves, and the intervals of underwood are so filled with reeds, that the sun cannot warm the earth, or ripen the fruit of this shrub. I will not undertake to describe all the kinds of grapes which this country produces; it is even impossible to know them all; I shall only speak of three or four.

The first sort that I shall mention does not perhaps deserve the name of a grape, although its wood and its leaf greatly resemble the vine. This shrub bears no bunches, and you hardly ever see upon it above two grapes together. The grape in substance and colour is very like a violet damask plum, and its stone, which is always single, greatly resembles a nut. Though not very relishing, it has not however that disagreeable sharpness of the grape that grows in the neighbourhood of New Orleans.

On the edge of the savannahs or meadows we meet with a grape, the shoots of which resemble those of the Burgundy grape. They make from this a tolerable good wine, if they take care to expose it to the sun in summer, and to the cold in winter. I have made this experiment myself, and must say that I never could turn it into vinegar.

There is another kind of grape which I make no difficulty of classing with the grapes of Corinth, commonly called currants. It resembles them in the wood, the leaf, the tree, the size, and the sweetness. Its tartness is owing to its being prevented from ripening by the thick shade of the large trees to which it twines. If it were planted and cultivated in an open field, I make not the least doubt but it would equal the grape of Corinth, with which I class it.

Muscadine grapes, of an amber colour, of a very good kind, and very sweet, have been found upon declivities of a good exposure, even so far north as the latitude of 31 degrees. There is the greatest probability that they might make excellent wine of these, as it cannot be doubted but the grapes might be brought to great perfection in this country, since in the moist soil of New Orleans, the cuttings of the grape which some of the inhabitants of that city brought from France, have succeeded extremely well, and afforded good wine.

As a proof of the fertility of Louisiana, I cannot forbear mentioning the following fact; an inhabitant of New Orleans having planted in his garden a few twigs of this Muscadine vine, with a view of making an arbour of them, one of his sons, with another negro boy, entered the garden in the month of June, when the grapes are ripe, and broke off all the bunches they could find. The father, after severely chiding the two boys, pruned the twigs that had been broken and bruised; and as several months of summer still remained, the vine pushed out new shoots, and new bunches, which ripened and were as good as the former.

The Persimmon, which the French of the colony call Placminier, very much resembles our medlar-tree in its leaf and wood: its flower, which is about an inch and a half broad, is white, and is composed of five petals; its fruit is about the size of a large hen's egg; it is shaped like our medlar, but its substance is sweeter and more delicate. This fruit is astringent; when it is quite ripe the natives make bread of it, which they keep from year to year; and the bread has this remarkable property that it will stop the most violent looseness or dysentery; therefore it ought to be used with caution, and only after physic. The natives, in order to make this bread, squeeze the fruit over fine sieves to separate the pulp from the skin and the kernels. Of this pulp, which is like paste or thick pap, they make cakes about a foot and a half long, a foot broad, and a finger's breadth in thickness: these they dry in an oven, upon gridirons, or else in the sun; which last method of drying gives a greater relish to the bread. This is one of their articles of traffick with the French.

Their plum-trees are of two sorts: the best is that which bears violet-coloured plums, quite like ours, which are not disagreeable, and which certainly would be good if they did not grow in the middle of woods. The other kind bears plums of the colour of an unripe cherry, and these are so tart that no body can eat them; but I am of opinion they might be preserved like gooseberries; especially if pains were taken to cultivate them in open grounds. The small cherries, called the Indian cherry, are frequent in this country. Their wood is very beautiful, and their leaves differ in nothing from those of the cherry tree.

The Papaws are only to be found far up in Higher Louisiana. These trees, it would seem, do not love heat; they do not grow so tall as the plum-trees; their wood is very hard and flexible; for the lower branches are sometimes so loaded with fruit that they hang perpendicularly downwards; and if you unload them of their fruit in the evening, you will find them next morning in their natural erect position. The fruit resembles a middle-sized cucumber; the pulp is very agreeable and very wholesome; but the rind, which is easily stripped off, leaves on the fingers so sharp an acid, that if you touch your eye with them before you wash them, it will be immediately inflamed, and itch most insupportably for twenty-four hours after.

The natives had doubtless got the peach-trees and fig-trees from the English colony of Carolina, before the French established themselves in Louisiana. The peaches are of the kind which we call Alberges; are of the size of the fist, adhere to the stone, and contain so much water that they make a kind of wine of it. The figs are either blue or white; are large and well enough tasted. Our colonists plant the peach stones about the end of February, and suffer the trees to grow exposed to all weathers. In the third year they will gather from one tree at least two hundred peaches, and double that number for six or seven years more, when the tree dies irrecoverably. As new trees are so easily produced, the loss of the old ones is not in the least regretted.