28 INTRODUCTION. 



At one Indian village, Bartram noticed a cultivated plantation of 

 the shellbark hickory, the trees thriving, and bearing better than 

 those left to nature ; and at another village he saw a carefully 

 pruned orange grove, besides plantations of maize, sweet potatoes, 

 beans, and other legumes, pumpkins, squashes, melons, and other 

 ' cucurbitaceae, and tobacco. Around other deserted villages were 

 growing plum, peach, and fig trees. A favorite situation for their 

 towns was on a peninsula formed by the bend of a river, or at the 

 junction of two rivers, which generally comprised a sufficient body 

 of land suited to their crops ; but, when this was not the case, they 

 chose a fertile spot in the most convenient place. Bartram passed 

 nearly two miles through a plantation of corn and beans, which was 

 well cultivated, and kept clear of weeds. 1 The peach described by 

 Coxe as the Columbia was so largely cultivated by the Indians in 

 the Carolinas and Georgia as to have received the name of Indian 

 peach. It reproduces itself from seeds. 



Peach and quince trees were killed by frost in the Province of 

 New York in 1737 ; but the apple and pear trees were not hurt by 

 the cold. In 1768 the Society for Promoting Arts, at New York, 

 awarded a premium of ten pounds to Thomas Young of Oyster 

 Bay, for the largest nursery of apple trees, the number being 

 27,123. 2 



The Linnaean Botanic Garden at Flushing, L.I., was founded 

 about the middle of the last century, by William Prince, and was 

 continued by three generations of his descendants. The Messrs. 

 Prince were unwearied in their endeavors to procure all foreign 

 and native plants, and for many years this was the most extensive 

 nursery establishment in the country. The collection of grapes, 

 both European and native, was very large : the American plants 

 were numerous and various, including splendid specimens of mag- 

 nolias and other forest trees. Here were made some of the ear- 

 liest attempts to produce improved varieties of fruit from seed in 

 this country. In 1827 the nurseries contained more than a hun- 

 dred species of Australian plants, among which were two of Eu- 

 calyptus and several Banksias. In 1828 they covered an extent of 

 thirty acres, the collection of roses occupying an acre, and includ- 

 ing more than six hundred different kinds. 3 William Robert Prince, 



1 Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, etc. 



2 Report of U. 8. Commissioner of Patents, 1853, pp. 261, 284. 



8 London's Gardener's Magazine, Vol. HE. p. 466, Vol. VTII. p. 280; New England 

 Farmer, Vol. V. p. 294, Vol. VH. p. 25. 



