76 NATURAL HISTORY AND TOPOGRAPHY OF GROTON, MASS. 



THE AGE OF APPLE-TREES. 



On my place in the village of Groton there are several old 

 apple-trees which seventy-five years ago bore well, and still 

 continue to bear a fair crop of fruit. While they begin to show 

 the signs of age, they do not seem to be very much larger 

 or taller than they used to be, when I first remember them, 

 though, of course, they are thicker through the butts. Per- 

 haps to my youthful fancy these trees then appeared larger 

 than they really were. I mention the fact here in order to 

 show that apple-trees will continue to bear during a long 

 period of time, probably through a century. 



THOMAS BROWNE, DISH-TURNER. 



At the Essex Registry of Deeds, Salem, there is recorded 

 (Volume II., p. 91), under date of June 17, 1663, the transfer 

 of a six-acre house-lot and a house by William Longley, of 

 Lynn, to Thomas Browne, of " Grawton," who is described 

 as a dish-turner. For a reference to the same transaction, 

 see Deeds (Volume III., p. 126) at the Middlesex Registry, 

 East Cambridge. In early times many articles of household 

 use were made of wood which have since been fashioned in 

 other material. Particularly in the country, wooden bowls, 

 plates, large spoons, etc., were in common use ; and men 

 skilled in making them formed a separate trade, often carried 

 on in connection with some other calling. 



Many years ago the late Mrs. Pamelia Jane (Bolton | Cart- 

 wright) Howe, of Roxbury, daughter of Eliab Going and 

 Dorcas Rogers (Farwell) Bolton, of Groton, gave me a 

 wooden plate made of maple, with an inscription on the bot- 

 tom, saying that since the year 1756 it had been used by three 

 generations of the Foster family, and that it was sold by 

 auction in 1880. The family lived near Squannacook village, 

 now known as West Groton. 



