BOSTON AND VICINITY. 35 



elms, which still live. He was much interested in orna- 

 mental culture, importing trees and shrubs from Europe, 

 and, it is said, received our common Barberry bush at a 

 high price, while he was paying men at the rate of five 

 shillings a day to dig them out of his own grounds. 

 This estate, "Elm Hill," for a long time was the resi- 

 dence of the late John D. W. Williams, but is now 

 (1881) being laid out into streets and cut up into 

 house lots. 



The Roxbury Russet apple was a great favorite a 

 hundred years ago, and many orchards produced from 

 five hundred to one thousand or more barrels a year. 

 It is believed to have originated on the old farm of 

 Ebenezer Davis, where some trees of the original 

 orchard still remain. 



The farm of Samuel Ward, now belonging to the 

 Brookline Land Company, was famous fifty years ago 

 for its Roxbury Russet apples, often producing a thou- 

 sand barrels a year ; and also for cherries, sending to 

 market forty to fifty bushels daily in the season, and 

 occasionally a four-ox team to Providence with seventy- 

 five bushels of cherries. 



Among the orchards of early times were those of the 

 Curtises, at Jamaica Plain. These have passed down 

 to the present occupants in direct lineal descent, and 

 from them immense crops of apples have been sent to 

 the Boston market, in which the Curtises are the largest 

 dealers and exporters of this fruit, shipping them by 

 thousands upon thousands of barrels to foreign ports. 1 



Nor should we omit the ancestral home of our worthy 

 citizen, Aaron Davis Weld, in West Roxbury, so cele- 

 brated for its orchards in olden time, and for the 

 last forty years for its famous apples and the renowned 

 Weld farm cider and vinegar, where now are grown 



l Charles F. Cu/tis's letter. 



