20 INTRODUCTION. 



planted by Gov. Stuj-vesant of New Amsterdam in 1647. It was 

 a Summer Bonchretien, and one of the oldest grafted trees which 

 have survived to our day. It is said to have been imported from 

 Holland. In 1856 it produced a bushel of pears. A description 

 and Woodcut may be found in Harpers' Magazine for May, 

 1862, when it was but little more than a venerable trunk. It stood 

 on the corner of Third Avenue and Thirteenth Street. It was 

 broken down by a dray in the spring of 1866, but afterwards sent 

 up a sucker from the foot, which grew ten feet high, but probably 

 proceeded from below the point where the tree was grafted. 



Gov. Stuj-vesant's garden, or " bouwery," was remarkably fine, 

 and kept in a high state of cultivation. From forty to fifty negro 

 slaves, besides a number of white servants, were constantly em- 

 plo}'ed in the improvement of the ground. Where the road to the 

 citj^ crossed his property, shade trees were planted on each side. 1 



Some cherry trees planted at Yonkers, N.Y., about 1650, by 

 Frederick Philipse, the founder of that place, were growing there 

 two hundred years later. Other cherry trees planted as early, at 

 Point Pleasant, Bristol, R.I., on the estate of Robert Rogers, also 

 endured for two centuries. 2 



"The pears which we now have," said Mr. Lowell in 1828, 8 

 " were introduced by the Huguenots, who, on the revocation of the 

 Edict of Nantes, fled to this country. The original trees are in 

 some instances to be found in the gardens laid out by the Faneuils, 

 the Johonnots, and others, and nearly all which we now have may 

 be traced to them. ' ' Mr. Lowell doubtless referred to the White 

 Do}-enne, St. Germain, Brown Beurre, Virgouleuse, etc. The revo- 

 cation of the Edict of Nantes was in 1685. Mr. Prince 4 remarked 

 in 1831, of the White Doyenne, or St. Michael, that, "in the vicin- 

 ity of New York and on Long Island, this variety of the pear is 

 more extensively cultivated than any other, and most of the very 

 ancient ingrafted trees there met with are of this description, where, 

 from time immemorial, it has borne the title of the Virgalieu pear. 

 How this name originated, and whether it was brought by the an- 

 cient Dutch settlers, or by some of the numerous French emigrants 

 at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, it seems impossible now 

 to determine : suffice it to say that by that title, and corruptions 



1 Lamb's History of the City of New York, Vol. I. pp. 187, 215. 



* Report of U. 8. Commissioner of Patents, 1853, p. 293. 

 New England Farmer, Vol. VII. p. 121. 



* Pomological Manual, Part I. p. 45. 



