744 THE FRUIT INDUSTRY IN NEW YORK STATE 



the skin. They are more irregular in shape than P. coronaria, 

 have a greasy feel, and are larger and less handsome. P. loensis 

 is said to have produced a number of promising hybrids that are 

 known as Pyrus Soulardi. All of the species named above are 

 small in size and inferior in quality, and thus far are of little or 

 no economic value. It is probable, however, that as the science of 

 pomology advances such hardy specimens will make excellent 

 stock with which to cross our commercial varieties or on which to 

 graft others. 



INTRODUCTION OF THE APPLE IN THE COLONIES 



The history of the cultivated apple may be said to begin with 

 the history of our own country. The earliest records are found in 

 the history of Plymouth Colony, where Peregrine White, the first 

 Englishman born in Xew England, planted an apple tree at Marsh- 

 field about 1648. In Russell's Guide to Plymouth, published in 

 1846, the tree is described as being seventeen feet in height, and 

 the old trunk, then mostly decayed, was said to measure six feet 

 in length, four and one-half feet in circumference, and to be still 

 bearing fruit. There are likewise records of many other trees and 

 orchards that settlers planted before the year 1700, all of them 

 strong growers but inferior in the quality of the fruit. 



In Massachusetts Colony, the farm of Governor Endicott was 

 known by the name of " Orchard " as early as 1643. In 1648, he 

 is recorded as having exchanged with William Trask five hundred 

 apple trees of three-year growth for two hundred and fifty acres of 

 land. His neighbor, William Blackstone, the first settler on the 

 peninsula of Boston, had an orchard near his residence and raised 

 apple trees on land that now forms the corner of Beacon and 

 Charles streets. After his removal to Rhode Island, he planted the 

 first orchard that ever bore apples in that state, at Study Hill, near 

 Pawtucket. Governor Winthrop was also interested in orcharding, 

 and in April, 1632, Conants Island in Boston Harbor was granted 

 to him to plant a vineyard and an orchard, which thenceforth 

 became known as the " Governor's Garden." The correspondence 

 of his son, John Winthrop, jr., shows that he also was interested 

 in the cultivation of fruit trees and continued the work that his 

 father had begun. By the year 1648, a resident of Cambridge, 



