SUMMER MEETING. 141 



to find the best varieties and plants and bring them home as a welcome 

 treat to the family. Some of the plums and summer j~"jpes were es- 

 pecially fine, and I have often thought since that they ought to have 

 been preserved, but when I became familiar with propagation later on 

 the best had disappeared. Or was it only the glamour of a boy's fancy 

 which made them look and taste so good then 1 



So we lived along for a number of years. Oar orchard bore it» 

 first fruit, the peaches mostly cling-stones, and ripening nearly at the 

 same time, but we thought them excellent ; no doubt our best policy, 

 for " When ignorance is bliss, 'twere folly to be wise." There was very 

 little communication with the outer world — in summer by steam-boat; 

 in winter by a mail-rider once a week, provided wind and rain permit- 

 ted. Postage was 25 cents a letter. How could we know much of the 

 advances which the country east was making ? We cultivated our 

 field crops by hand, some 40 acres of land, and certainly had enough 

 of hard and daily toil. 



The next indication of an advance we perceived came from a Mr. 

 Heinrich, who came from Ohio to Hermann, bringing some choice 

 peach trees and a few vines with him, which were planted in a lot on 

 the corner of First and Schiller streets. This must have been about 

 1842-3, as they bore fruit in 1844-5. Also some Isabella vines, planted 

 in an arbor by Mr. Fugger on the opposite corner. When they com- 

 menced to bear we saw the great difference between them and our 

 seedlings, and began to hanker after better fruits. The small begin- 

 nings made by Fugger & Langendoerfer with the Isabella and Catawba 

 were so successful that a club was made up to send for cuttings to 

 Cincinnati, which arrived on the deck of a steam-boat, fully exposed 

 to the sun, and had to be soaked several days before they became fresh 

 enough to plant. Of these I planted 300 on my father's farm, who was 

 one of the subscribers, in spring of 1847, my first initiation to viti- 

 culture. Mr. Michael Poeschell had planted a small vineyard of Ca- 

 tawbas in 1844, of which in 1846 he made 1,200 gallons of wine from 

 two thirds of an acre, and sold some of it at $4.00 per gallon. This 

 gave the first inpetus to grape culture in that neighborhood. The 

 father of our present esteemed friend, Jacob Rommel, Sr,, was also 

 one of the pioneers in this branch, as also in fruit culture. But the 

 main impetus to that neighborhood was given by Charles Teubner, 

 father of your present member, who came to Hermann in the winter of 

 1846-7, purchased the old Ellison place just below, and imported a 

 large lot of fruit trees of all kinds, several thousand, as well as about 

 3,000 grape vines, strawberries and other small fruits, and converted 

 the eastern hill-side, about 30 acres, into an orchard and vineyard of 



