Note 68 — Chapter II · AMERICAN GRAPES

John Adlum, a native of Pennsylvania, was born in 1759 and died at Georgetown, D. C., in 1836. Adlum was one of the first men to see clearly the possibility of improving the wild grapes of America and of bringing them under cultivation. He published accounts of this fruit in his Cultivation of the Vine and in the agricultural papers of his time, thereby aiding in bringing it into public notice as a cultivated plant. At “The Vineyard”, near Georgetown, he established an experimental plantation of grapes from which he distributed many vines, chief of which were those of the Catawba, a variety for whose dissemination he is largely responsible. Adlum tried without avail to have the national government found an experimental farm for the culture of grapes and his effort was one of the first to secure governmental aid in agricultural experimentation. Beside his work with the grape, Adlum was deeply interested in other phases of agriculture and in the scientific movements of his time. He was a soldier of the Revolution, a brigadier-general in the militia of Pennsylvania, a county judge, and a civil engineer and surveyor. In spite of his work in the early part of the last century for agriculture and for his State and country, Adlum was practically unknown to the present generation until a sketch of his life and work appeared in Bailey’s The Evolution of Our Native Fruits from which this sketch is written. Adlum’s memory is perpetuated in the name of the beautiful climbing fumitory of one of the Northern Atlantic States, Adlumnia cirhosa, bestowed upon him by his contemporary, Rafinesque. (For a more complete account of Adlum’s life, see Bailey’s Evolution of Our Native Fruits, pp. 50-61.)