[3] Perhaps the most marked distinguishing feature between ancient and modern grape-growing is the training of vines to trees as indicated in the above verse. Pliny says of this practice: “In Campania they attach the vine to the poplar; embracing the tree to which it is thus wedded, the vine grasps the branches with its amorous arms, and as it climbs, holds on with its knotted trunk till it has reached the very summit; the height being sometimes so stupendous that the vintager when hired, is wont to stipulate for his funeral pile and grave at the owner’s expense.”
[4] Bailey gives the following interpretation of the word “fox” and its derivatives as applied to grapes: “The term fox-grape was evidently applied to various kinds of native grapes in the early days, although it is now restricted to the Vitis labrusca of the Atlantic slope. Several explanations have been given of the origin of the name fox-grape, some supposing that it came from a belief that foxes eat the grapes, others that the odor of the grape suggests that of the fox—an opinion to which Beverly subscribed nearly two centuries ago—and still others thinking that it was suggested by some resemblance of the leaves to a fox’s track. William Bartram, writing at the beginning of this century, in the Medical Repository, is pronounced in his convictions: ‘The strong, rancid smell of its ripe fruit, very like the effluvia arising from the body of the fox, gave rise to the specific name of this vine, and not, as many have imagined, from its being the favourite food of the animal; for the fox (at least the American species) seldom eats grapes or other fruit if he can get animal food.’ I am inclined to suggest, however, that the name may have originated from the lively foxing or intoxicating qualities of the poor wine which was made from the wild grapes. At the present day we speak of ‘foxiness’ when we wish to recall the musk-like flavor of the wild Vitis labrusca; but this use of the term is of later origin, and was suggested by the name of the grape.” Bailey, L. H. Evolution of Our Native Fruits: 5. 1898.
[5] The phylloxera (Phylloxera vastatrix Planch.) has four forms: the leaf-gall form, the root form, the winged form, and the sexual form. Individual leaf insects produce from 500 to 600 eggs, the root insect about 100, the winged insect from 3 to 8, and the sexual insect but 1. The last is laid in the fall on old wood; the following spring a louse hatches from it and at once goes to the upper surface of a leaf and inserts its beak. The irritation thus produced causes a gall to form on the lower side of the leaf. In fifteen days the louse becomes a full-grown wingless female and proceeds to fill the gall with eggs after which it dies. In about a week females hatch from the eggs and migrate to form new colonies. Several generations of females occur in a summer. At the approach of winter the lice go into the ground where they remain dormant until spring when they attack the roots forming galls analogous to those on the leaves and passing through a series of generations similar to those above ground. In the fall of the second year some of the root forms give rise to winged females which fly to neighboring vines. These lay eggs in groups of two or four on the wood of the grape. The eggs are of two sizes; from the smaller size, males hatch in nine or ten days; from the larger, females. In the sexual stage no food is taken and the insects quickly pair. The female produces an egg which fills its entire body and after three or four days lays it, this being the winter egg, the beginning of the cycle.
There are no remedies worthy the name and the only efficient preventive is to graft susceptible varieties on resistant stocks. Species are resistant about in the order named: V. rotundifolia, V. riparia, V. rupestris, V. cordifolia, V. berlandieri, V. cinerea, V. aestivalis, V. candicans, V. labrusca, V. vinifera.
[6] Delaware wrote as follows: “In every boske and hedge, and not farr from our pallisade gates we have thousands of goodly vines running along and leaving to every tree, which yealds a plentiful grape in their kinde. Let me appeale, then, to knowledge if these naturall vines were planted, dressed and ordered by skilfull vinearoons, whether we might not make a perfect grape and fruitfull vintage in short time?” Delaware’s Relation. Brown’s Genesis of the United States. 1611.
[7] Discourse of the Old Company, British State Papers, Vol. III:40 See Virginia Magazine of History, Vol. I:159.
[8] Laws and Orders of Assembly, Feb. 16, 1623. McDonald Papers, Vol. I:97. Va. State Library.
[9] The clause in this act reads: “That all workers upon corne and tobacco shall this spring plant five vyne plants per pol, and the next year, before the first day of March, 20 per pol, upon penaltie to forfeite one barrell of corne for every one that shall make default.”
[10] Roger Beverly, writing a century later, describes the early grape-growing in Virginia as follows: “The Year before the Massacre, Anno 1622, which destroyed so many good projects for Virginia; some French vignerons were sent thither to make an experiment of their vines. These people were so in love with the country, that the character they then gave of it in their letters to the company in England, was very much to its advantage, namely: ‘That it far excelled their own country of Languedoc, The vines growing in great abundance and variety all over the land; that some of the grapes were of that unusual bigness, that they did not believe them to be grapes, until by opening them they had seen their kernels; that they had planted the cuttings of their vines at Michaelmas, and had grapes from those very cuttings, the spring following. Adding in the conclusion, that they had not heard of the like in any other country.’ Neither was this out of the way, for I have made the same experiment, both of their natural vine, and of the plants sent thither from England.” Beverly’s Virginia, Second Edition: 107. 1722.
[11] Fiske, John. Old Virginia and Her Neighbors. Vol. II:372, 385.