Historical Notes 5 



for New England,' among which are included 'stones of all 

 sorts of fruits, as peaches, plums, filberts, cherries.' Some- 

 what later, in a letter of April 17, 1629, from Gravesend, 

 England, by the governor and deputy of the New England 

 Company to Capt. John Endicott, then governor and council 

 for London's plantation in the Massachusetts Bay in New 

 England, we read (p. 392) : 



" *As for fruit stones and kernels, the time of the year fits not 

 to send them now, so we propose to do it pr. our next.' 



'*In 1633 the Dutch sea-captain, De Vries, found peach 

 trees in Virginia in the garden of George Minifie, on the 

 James River, between Blunt Point and Jamestown. They 

 were the first seen by him in North America. The following 

 is copied from the entry in his journal : 



"'Arrived at Littletown, where Menifit lives. He has a 

 garden of two acres, full of primroses, apple, pear and cherry 

 trees. . . . Around the house there are plenty of peach trees, 

 which were hardly in bloom.' 



''Minifie settled there in 1623.^ In 1635 appeared the 

 following mention of peach-growing in Maryland : 



" ' Although there be not 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. ^ 



1 "The Founders of Maryland," etc., by Rev. Ed. D. Neill, A.B. 

 Albany, Joel Munsell, 1876, pp. 52, 53. 



2 "A Relation in Maryland." Author unknown. Reprinted 

 from the London edition of 1635, with a prefatory note and an ap- 

 pendix by Francis L. Hawks, D. D., LL. D. New York, Joseph 

 Sabin, 1865, p. 28. 



