748 THE FRUIT INDUSTRY IN NEW YORK STATE 



Even in the time of Bartram, however, " great quantities " of 

 apples were being exported, which we are told were superior in 

 flavor to those produced in England and Italy. Without doubt 

 the varieties introduced and disseminated were many, but history 

 gives us no record of what they were nor to what extent the dis- 

 semination was carried on. 



THE APPLE IN NEW YORK STATE 



As the tide of immigration moved westward, the pioneers carried 

 with them the fruit of their primitive homes to the frontiers of 

 civilization. Not only did the apple keep pace with civilization, 

 however ; it even passed beyond the farthest outposts, for fruit and 

 seed fell into the hands of the Indians and by them were carried 

 into the wilderness. In this manner, the apple came into the pos- 

 session of the Seneca and Cayuga Indians and in all probability of 

 other tribes scattered here and there throughout the state. The <Sen- 

 ecas and Cayugas were the most highly civilized, however, and their 

 section was particularly well adapted to fruit growing, so that it 

 was in this region almost entirely that- General Sullivan saw 

 apple orchards regularly laid out and bending with fruit during 

 his raid into western New York in 1779. In that year, we are 

 told, he found seventy apple trees at the Indian village of Kendaia, 

 or Appleton (Apple Town), near Seneca Lake, in the west part 

 of the town of Romulus, Seneca County. At this time the trees 

 appeared to be fifty years old, which would make the date of plant- 

 ing as early as 1730. In a little book called " The Lake Country," 

 by John Corbett, it is recorded that during his campaign Sullivan 

 felled apple trees numbering into the thousands. This may have 

 been true, because we have record of orchards having existed near 

 the village of Levanna on Cayuga Lake, along what is now the 

 south line of the town of Seneca Falls, and in Yates County, which 

 lies a little to the south. The fruit of the trees in the orchard at 

 Levanna was so choice that settlers came miles to cut grafts in 

 order to provide orchards near their new homes, but for the most 

 part the Indian trees bore poor fruit. In the region of Oswego the 

 first orchard on record was planted by the Indians, and stood on the 

 east bank of the Oswego River eight miles to the south of the 

 present city. The early settlers bought the land and orchard from 



