STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. •• I •"> 



Mr. Flagg is deserving ureal credit for his devotion to the cause of Horticulture and 

 Agriculture, as well as all other movements of progress and reform. I would take it as 

 an especial favor if the old patriarchs of the count] would answer these questions In 

 their several Localities. Lei us have full statistics in tlii- very important enterprise, 

 before you pass away. Will no1 all our county papers publish the Bame? It is hoped 

 that Colonel Jarrot will rive this matter his especial attention, Bince the flrsl pear or- 

 chard was planted near Cahokia. W ill Mr. John Griffing please Bend us a statement of 

 Esq. Mason's orchard and nursery business, as I believe he had the first extensive nurs- 

 ery in this county? Those of yon who planted the Bret vineyard, and made the tirst — 

 himI bo well appreciated — good' Catawba wine in this county, arc expected to rive a full 

 description of the same. Very respectfully yours, 



' GEO. C. EISENMAYER. 



M \- 01 rui, Nov. 80, 1868. 



But have receive 1 no information from any person whatever, neither through the 

 press, ,,,,]■ through the mail. I am, however, able to rive you the following account, as 

 related to me by Judge Win. Snyder, of the city of Belleville : 



Monsieur Girardin, a native of France, planted the lir-t pear orchard of very fine fruit, 

 which he broughl from his native country ahout the year 1730, at his farm near Prairie 

 l)u Pont, one mile south of Cahokia ; said trees or some of them arc still healthy and 

 bearing tine fruit every year, some arc as large as three to four feet in diameter. During 

 the high water, in 1S44, a great deal of the fruit was gathered hy persons in canoes, and 

 carried in that way to market, the whole bottom being covered with water, from live to 

 seven feet. Those trees were never injured by high floods. Young orchards, or low 

 t ipped trees are always killed by floods, if the water is high enough to cover the leaves, 

 otherwise they are not injured. 



Monsieur Girardin was a gentleman of hiirh culture, a man of large mind, and a great 

 mechanical genius, he constructed a clock, similar to the "Wonder Clock" of Strass- 

 burg, in France ; on account of hi> superior intelligence, he was looked up to by his 

 Ignorant and illiterate neighbors, as a magician, and in commerce with the devil, at least 

 as a man whom they could neither read, understand, nor comprehend. He laid metallic 

 water pipes from Palling Springs on the bluff, one and a half mile to his farm, which fur- 

 nished him tine, sunt, healthy water, for ornamental as well as practical purposes. 



That whole bottom opposite St. Louis, ia now and has been for the last fifteen years 

 covered with apple, pear and peach orchards, the trees appear to me very healthy, and 

 1 believe are remunerative to their owners. 



Mr. John H. Dennis informed me, that he came to this county in 1818 ; and that Major 

 Win. <<. Brown, living two mile, southeast of Mascoutah, had the first seedling apples 

 that he -aw. One Mr. Abel Fike also had a few trees in bearing at that time. Rev. 

 Samuel Mltchel, set out an orchard five miles southeast of Belleville. Judge Moore and 

 Risdon Moore, four miles east of Belleville, and the Alexanders, near Shiloh, all planted 

 orchards that year, as well as a good many other settlers throughout the county. Mr. 



Risdon Moore raised the flrsi red June apple in 1*'30, said apple was, and is yet, a popu- 

 lar apple in this county ; it has of late years been superseded by the •■ Early Harvi 



In 1828, Mr. Dennis brought the first cions of " Pryor's Red," commonly known as 

 '•Big Hill," to this county. The name "Big Hill" was derived from tin: fact that Luke 

 Pryor lived on a big hill, on James river, Virginia, thai apple which is such a favorite 

 throughout the country, was known in Virginia by that name only. 



About the year 1820, Mr. John H. Gay brought the tu-t grafted apple trees to this 

 county, and planted them two mile- cast of Belleville, on hi- thousand acre farm, which 

 Orchard is yet partly in a bearing condition, and he (what is not generally the ease with 



