Initially proposed by Peter Legaux at a meeting of the American Philosophical Society in 1793, the Vine Company of Pennsylvania was a stock company that encouraged the domestic production of grapes, wines, and brandy, and dissemination of knowledge about viticulture. After its incorporation in 1802, the Company operated vineyards on Legaux's farm at Spring Mill, 13 miles northwest of Philadelphia, until it failed in 1822. The three volumes of Journals of the Vine Company of Pennsylvania record the daily operations of America's first commercial vineyard bewteeen 1803 and 1814. Kept by the superintendent, Peter Legaux, the journals provide careful records of weather, planting, harvesting and other field work, as well as some of the doings of the officers and shareholders of the Company. The fourth volume is essentially a weather diary kept by Legaux at Spring Mill from 1822 until his death in 1827. The last volume of Vine Company records covering the last eight years of its operation, 1814-1822, has been lost.

Having made his fortune as a goldsmith and silversmith, John Leacock (1729-1802) became one of Philadelphia's most energetic entrepreneurs in viticulture and a playwright and parodist in the cause of American Independence. Despite bearing the title, "Observations, Experiments etc. extracted from the Philosophical Transactions respecting farming, gardening, etc.," the notebook kept by the silversmith, viticulturist, and writer, John Leacock, is actually a combination of commonplace book, notebook, and receipt book. Consisting of 58 folio pages, the book contains a hodgepodge of entries reflecting Leacock's varied interests from 1768 through at least 1781, including not only material copied from other sources on viticulture, agriculture, engraving and etching, but medicinal and culinary receipts and two original poems, a "Song [of] the Stamp Act" and "A parody on the Tempest, by R. H. Esq." It also mentions diet drinks made by James Logan and Cadwallader Evans.