10 FIRST FRUITS OF THE LAND. 



men, women, and children came from miles around to see 

 it, and made a hard beaten track through the nursery to 

 this joyous reminder of the old homestead so far away. 



Ralph C. Geer also came in 1847 and brought one 

 bushel of apple seeds and half a bushel of pear seeds, and 

 was one of the first to plant an orchard in the Waldo 

 Hills. 



People in those days in this sparsely settled country 

 knew what their neighbors were doing, and in the fall of 

 1848 and spring of 1849, they came hundreds of miles 

 from all over the country for scions and young trees to 

 set in the little dooryard or to start an orchard ; so that 

 the trees were soon distributed all over the settlements of 

 the valley yearlings selling at fifty cents to one dollar 

 each. 



The first considerable orchards were set on French 

 Prairie, and in the Waldo hills and about Salem. Of apples 

 the following varieties were common : Red Astrachan, Red 

 June, Talman's Sweet, Summer Sweet, Gravenstein, White 

 Winter Pearmain, Blue Pearmain, Genet, Gloria Mundi, 

 Baldwin, Rambo, Winesap, Jennetting, Seek-no-further, 

 Tulpahockin, American Pippin, Red Cheek Pippin, Rhode 

 Island Greening, Virginia Greening, Little Romanite, 

 Spitzenberg, Swaar, Waxen, and a spurious Yellow New- 

 town Pippin since called Green Newtown Pippin a 

 worthless variety which has since caused much trouble to 

 nurserymen, orchardists, and fruit buyers, and brought 

 by mistake for the genuine and other varieties not now 

 remembered. 



Of pears, the Fall Butter, Pound Pear, Winter Nellis, 

 Seckle, Bartlett, and others. 



Of cherries, May Duke, Governor Wood, Oxheart, Black- 

 heart, Black Tartarian, Kentish, and others. 



Peaches, the Crawford, Hale's Early, Indian Peach, 

 Golden Cling, and seedlings. 



