OF NORTH CAROLINA. 181 



no place has fairer and better relish. They are 

 very pleasant eaten raw. Of this fruit, they make 

 a wine, or liquor, which they call quince drink, and 

 which I approve of beyond any drink which that 

 country affords, though a great deal of cider and 

 some perry is there made. The quince drink most 

 commonly purges those that first drink it and 

 cleanses the body very well. The arguments of the 

 physicians, that they bind people is hereby contra- 

 dicted, unless we allow the quinces to differ in the 

 two countries. The least slip of this tree stuck in 

 the ground, comes to bear in three years. 



All peaches with us are standing ; neither have 

 we any wall truit in Carolina, for we have heat 

 enough, and therefore do not require it. We have 

 a great many sorts of this fruit, which all thrive 

 to admiration, peach trees coming to perfection, 

 with us, as easily as the weeds. A peach falling 

 to the ground brings a peach tree that shall bear 

 in three years, or sometimes sooner. Eating peach- 

 es in our orchards makes them come up so thick 

 from the kernel, that we are forced to take a great 

 deal of care to weed them out, otherwise they 

 make our land a wilderness of peach tress. They 

 generally bear so full that they break great part 

 of their limbs down. We have likewise very fair 

 nectarines, especially the red, that clings to the 

 stone ; the other yellow fruit, that leaves the stone. 

 Of the last, I have a tree that most years brings 

 me fifteen or twenty bushels. I see no foreign 

 fruit like this, for thriving in all sorts of land, and 



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