58 THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK 



As early as 1641, a nursery had been started in Massachusetts and 

 was selUng among other trees those of the cherry. Troublesome pests 

 had made their appearance, too, as may be seen from the following letter, 

 probably from the first American nurseryman. The letter is written 

 by George Fenwith of Saybrook, Connecticut, under date of May 6, 1641,^ 

 to Governor John Winthrop, Jr. 



" I haue receaued the trees yow sent me, for which I hartily thanke 

 yow. If I had any thing heare that could pleasure yow, yow should frely 

 command it. I am prettie well storred with chirrie & peach trees, & did 

 hope I had had a good nurserie of aples, of the aples yow sent me last 

 yeare, but the wormes have in a manner distroyed them all as they came 

 vp. I pray informe me if yow know any way to preuent the like mis- 

 chief e for the futtire." 



These early plantations of cherries in New England were undoubtedly 

 grown from seed; for buds, cions and trees could not have been imported 

 unless the latter were brought over potted out as was not commonly done 

 until a century and a half later — • at least, the records make mention 

 of seeds and not of trees as was the case just before and after the 

 Revolutionary War. A statement left by one of the Chief Justices of 

 Massachusetts, Paul Dudley, living at Roxbiiry, at as late a date as 1726, 

 indicates that varieties were few. In a paper in the Philosophical Trans- 

 actions^ on agriciiltural conditions in Massachusetts, among many other 

 interesting things. Justice Dudley says: 



" Our apples are without doubt as good as those of England, and 

 much fairer to look to, and so are the pears, but we have not got all the 

 sorts. Our peaches do rather excel those of England, and then we have 

 not the trouble or expence of walls for them; for our peach trees are all 

 standards, and I have had in my own garden seven or eight hundred fine 

 peaches of the Rare-ripes, growing at a time on one tree. Our people, 

 of late years, have run so much upon orchards, that in a village near Boston, 

 consisting of about forty families, they made near three thousand barrels 

 of cyder. This was in the year 1721 . And in another town of two hundred 

 families, in the same year I am credibly informed they made near ten 

 thousand barrels. Our peach trees are large and fruitful, and bear com- 

 monly in three years from the stone. Our common cherries are not so 

 good as the Kentish cherries of England, and we have no Dukes or Heart 

 cherries, unless in two or three gardens." 



^ Mass. Hist. Collections 4th Ser. VI:499. 



^Abridgment 6:pt. 11:341, in Hist. Mass. Hart. Soc. 14-15. 1829-1878. 



