“In Alabama, Dr. S. Brown, at Eagleville.”
Continuing, he gives an idea of grape production in 1830:—“The average crop of wine with us is 300 gallons per acre. At York, where 2700 vines are put on one acre, each vine has often produced a quart of wine, and thus 675 gallons per acre, value $675 in 1823, besides $200 for 5000 cuttings. One acre of vineyard did then let for $200 or 300, thus value of the acre about $5000: This was in poor soil unfit for wheat, and for mere Claret.
“Now in 1830, that common French Claret often sells only at 50 cents the gallon, the income must be less. I hope our claret may in time be sold for 25 cents the gallon, and the table grapes at one cent the lb. and even then an acre of vineyard will give an income of $75, and be worth $1000 the acre.
“The greatest check to this cultivation is the time required for grapes to bear well, from 3 to 6 years: our farmers wishing to have quick yearly crops; but then when a vineyard is set and in bearing, it will last forever, the vines themselves lasting from 60 to 100 years, and are easily re-placed as they decay.
“The next check is the precarious crops if badly managed. Every year is not equally plentiful and sometimes there is a total failure when rains drown the blossoms; but an extra good crop of 500 or 600 gallons commonly follows and covers their loss.” Rafinesque, C. S. American Manual of the Grape Vines., Philadelphia. 1830. pp. 43-45.
[72] Tradition relates that the first Scuppernong vine known by civilized man was found on the coast of North Carolina by Amadas and Barlowe in 1584 and was transplanted by them to Roanoke Island. An old vine of great diameter of stem and spread of vine, gnarled in trunk and branch, evidently of great age, is known as the “Mother Scuppernong” and is supposed to be the vine transplanted in 1584.
[73] Calvin Jones writing June 17, 1817, in the American Farmer, 3:332, from Raleigh, North Carolina, gives the following account of the name Scuppernong: “This grape & wine, had the name of Scuppernong, given to them by Henderson & myself, in compliment to Jas. Blount, of Scuppernong, who first diffused a general knowledge of it in several well written communications in our paper—and it is cultivated with more success on that river, than in any other part of the state, perhaps, except the Island of Roanoke.” It is worthy of note that Scuppernong is largely a sea-board name for Vitis rotundifolia and is not commonly applied to it outside of the Atlantic States.
[74] There is some evidence to show that the Clinton contains Labrusca blood.
[75] Buchanan, Robert. Grape Culture: 61. 1850.
[76] British Parliamentary Papers (Library of Congress), Vol. 30. 1859.