Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/496

 excellence of the figs, which in his opinion were equal to those which were grown in Spain. No English currants were seen by him in the Colony. He informs us that it was now fully admitted that oranges were not adapted to the soil or the climate. The hope that the olive could be cultivated still survived. In 1684, Fitzhugh decided to repeat the trial which had been so often undertaken already, with such a small degree of success, being prompted to the step by the fact that Virginia was in the same latitude as several countries in which this fruit was known to prosper. He instructed Samuel Haywood in England to send him olive plants procured from these lands. No record has been transmitted as to the result of Fitzhugh&#8217;s experiment, but it is highly probable that, like all the previous ones, it ended in a complete failure.

But little attention was paid to the culture of the grape, the masses of the people being content with the fruit of the wild vines growing in such quantities in every part of the forest.