98 On Apple Trees and Grafting. 
oo oS 
My apples are nearly all blasted and. fallen off, not 
with frosts but cold wet rains; some I observed fell 
off before others, according as I presume to the delicacy 
of their constitutions ; my pomme roi fell first. 
Those that hung best were the New England seek 
no furthers, and the noted Townsend apples; can this be 
owing to their being natural fruit of the country ? 
T am respectfully your friend, 
SAMUEL PRESTON.* 
* Mr. Preston having had great experience in orchards, 
we give publicity to his information with pleasure. We can- 
not accord in his conclusion, though the facts of longevity 
of the old apple trees are curious. The crab apple alone we 
believe to be a native. There is no trace in our forests of 
other apples; which are found always zn settlements, either 
of the Indians, or their successors. The peach though called 
persica, trom its being brought from Persia into Europe,—we 
believe is also a native of the southern regions of our conti- 
nent ; where it is found growing wild and spontaneously in 
great varieties in the forests; most commonly near streams, 
the sea, or great waters. 
We by no means make the assertion ; but it would not be 
a more visionary conjecture, that, if the apples mentioned 
were not imported by Europeans, they might have been 
brought from Tartary, or those parts of the other continent 
from whence our aborigines wandered. The facts are too 
isolated and few, to draw from them any solid conclusions. 
The pyrus malus, or apple, as we see it in our orchards, is said, 
by botanists, to be an improved variety of the crab or 
wilding. Accident may have produced some, and careful cul- 
tivation others, of the 40 or 50 varieties we possess. But that 
