13 



around their habitations. Yet the beet, the carrot, 

 and the plants of common culinary use, soon sprang 

 up in the gardens of Plymouth. The acquisition 

 of the comforts and conveniences of the mother 

 land was by a slow process. " I have myself heard 

 some say," writes Wood in 1634, " they had heard 

 it was a rich land, a brave country : but when they 

 came there, they could see nothing but a few canvas 

 booths and old houses ; supposing, at the first, to 

 have found walled towns, fortifications, and corn- 

 fields ; as if towns could have built themselves, or 

 cornfields have grown without the husbandry of 

 man." 



The days of feebleness, of depression, and of pov- 

 erty, went by. The colony grew strong and popu- 

 lous : and as its vigorous offsets were thrown out, 

 the wilderness began to blossom, and improvement 

 urged on her renovating work with accelerated 

 pace. 



The record of history contains evidence, that the 

 production of fruits in the colony of the Massachu- 

 setts, commenced, where it has been most happily 

 prosecuted, around Boston. When John W^inthrop 

 and his company of planters reached Charlestown, 

 in the summer of 1630, an honored occupant pos- 

 sessed the whole peninsula of Shawmut. William 

 Blackstone had formed his garden, at the foot of the 

 three mountains : on the firm authority of Gov. 

 Hopkins, it may be considered as established, that 

 this pioneer of cultivation, "had been there so long 

 as to have raised apple trees, and planted an 

 orchard'' the first of Massachusetts. The virtue of 

 independence, which impelled one of the most ex- 



