THE ENDICOTT PEAK TREE. 11 



descended the Wisconsin and Mississippi, commended the agricul- 

 ture of the aborigines. Their beans and melons he found excellent ; 

 but their squashes were not of the best. The researches of Dr. 

 Gray * have made it probable that the Jerusalem artichoke (Ileli- 

 anthus tuberosus) is indigenous, and was cultivated by the Ilurons. 

 It excites some surprise to notice how rapidly the aborigines availed 

 themselves of the vegetables introduced by the Europeans, and 

 raised orchards of fruit trees, especially the peach and apple. 



We find in the records of the Massachusetts Company the evi- 

 dence of forethought for the interests of the Colony in the form of 

 a memorandum on the 16th of March, 1629, " To provide to send 

 for New England, Vyne Planters, Stones of all sorts of fruites, as 

 peaches, plums, filberts, cherries, pear, aple, quince kernells, pome- 

 granats, also wheate, rye, barle} T , oates, woad, saffron, liquorice 

 seed, and madder rootes, potatoes, hoprootes, currant plants." 2 In 

 a letter from the governor and deputy of the New England Colony 

 to the governor and council in New England, April 17, 1629, 

 they say, " As for fruit stones and kernells the tyme of the yeare 

 fitts not to send them now, soe wee purpose to do it by our next." 8 

 It would appear from Josselyn's account, 4 that these seeds were 

 afterwards sent, and had sprung up and prospered. 



As in the Plymouth Colony we find a tree surviving from the 

 orchard planted by an early governor, so in the Massachusetts 

 we have one remaining from the orchard planted by Gov. Endicott. 

 The time of planting of this tree has been given from the date, 

 1630, on a sun-dial which stood near it, and which, the governor 

 said, bore the age of the tree. It has, however, been questioned 

 whether this tradition is correct, as the land where it stands was 

 not granted to John Endicott until 1632, and it is improbable that 

 the governor would have commenced cultivation before he had 

 obtained a legal right to the land. If the family tradition, that 

 the tree came over from England in the " Arabella " with Gov. 

 Winthrop, June, 1630, is correct, it may have been planted at 

 Gov. Endicott' s town residence, 5 before the grant of the farm. 

 The fact that the governor and his descendants lived upon the 

 farm until 1816, and that they held it by the original grant until 

 1828, a period of one hundred and ninety-six years, strengthens 

 our faith in the traditionary account of the age of the tree. 6 



1 American Agriculturist, 1877, p. U2. * Ante, p. 8. 



2 Mass. Records, Vol. I. p. 24. 8 Ante, p. 5. 



s Ibid., p. 392. e Hovey's Magazine, Vol. XIX. p. 254. 



