224 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Although there may not be many that do apply themselves to plant gardens and 

 orchards, yet those that do it find much profit and pleasure thereby. They have peares, 

 apples, and several sorts of plummes, peaches in abundance, and as good as those in 

 Italy. 



Ill 3 656 John Haramond wrote of an earlier period, "Orchards innumer- 

 able were planted and preserved " (p. 9), and of his own time: 



The country is full of gallant orchards, and the fruit generally more luscious and 

 delightful than here. Witness the peach and quince. The latter may be eaten raw 

 savourily; the former differs and as much exceeds ours as the best relished apple we 

 have doth the crab, and of both most excellent and comfortable drinks are made 

 (p. 13). 



Some other early statements are as follows: 



In the hot summer, rock cold water, with an eighth of peach vinegar, is the best bev- 

 erage; peaches better than apricots by some doe feed hogs. One man hath ten thou- 

 sand trees. 



Fruits they have, strawberries, gooseberries, etc.; and for fruits brought there and 

 planted, apples, pears, quinces, apricocks, peaches, and many more kinds excellent 

 good, etc. 



In orchards [they have] all sorts of apple trees, pear trees, quince, peach, apricocks,. 

 cherries, fig trees, and vines. 



Mr. Scharf declares that : 



All early travelers in and writers about Maryland have noted the fact that even 

 before the first generation of settlers had passed, the country was thickly planted with 

 orchards of apple and peach trees, which seemed to grow in the most flourishing way. 



It is certainly remarkable that within twenty-two years after the landing at Saint 

 Mary's [in 1634] orchards should have become a notable and even conspicuous feature 

 in the landscape; but the evidence of the fact is conclusive. 



To the effect that previous to 1683 peach trees were growing thriftily in 

 considerable numbers in other" parts of the country, there are statements by 

 at least four persons, Thomas Campanius, 1643-i8 ; Louis Hennepin, 1679-82; 

 Mahlon Stacy, 1680, and William Penn, 1683, 



Campanius records finding peaches in three places along the Delaware. 

 Hennepin says: 



The peaches there [in Louisiana] are like those of Europe and bear very good fruit 

 in such abundance that the savages are often obliged to prop up the trees with forked 

 sticks. 



Du Pratz thinks it probable that peaches were introduced into Louisiana 

 by the Indians prior to French occupation; the aborigines having obtained 

 them from the English colony in Carolina. This is the most probable origin 

 of those found by Hennepin, De Soto's visit to the Mississippi 150 years 

 before having been under conditions not at all favorable either to the trans- 

 portation or the planting of peach pits. 



Stacy writes from New Jersey: 



I have traveled through most of the places that are settled, and some that are not ; 

 and in every place I find the country very apt to answer the expectation of the diligent. 

 I have seen orchards laden with fruit to admiration ; their very limbs torn to pieces by 

 the weight, and most delicious to the taste and lovely to behold. I have seen an apple 

 tree from a pippin kernel yield a barrel of curious cider, and peaches in such plenty 

 that some people took their carts a peach gathering ; I could not but smile at the con- 

 ceit of it ; they are very delicate fruit, and hang almost like our onions that are tied 

 on ropes. 



William Penn says: 



The fruits I find in the woods are white and black mulberry, chestnut, walnut, 

 plums, strawberries, cranberries, hurtleberries, and grapes of diverse sorts. ♦ » * 

 Here are also peaches and very good and great in quantities, not an Indian plantation 

 without them ; but whether naturally here at first I know not. However, one may 



