FRUIT CULTURE IN THE WEST. 37 



The leader of this enterprise was John James Dufour, a native of 

 Switzerland, a man remarkable for intelligence, industry, and 

 zeal in the cultivation of fruit. With much labor he gathered about 

 thirty-five varieties of grapes, and a choice and valuable collection 

 of other fruits. He established a nursery, and stimulated a taste 

 for the improvement and cultivation of fruit. The wine-making 

 enterprise, like all others depending on foreign grapes, was unsuc- 

 cessful, and the little band of cultivators was broken up. They 

 afterwards joined themselves to another colony of their country- 

 men, who had commenced the cultivation of the vine at Vevay, 

 Ind., in 1802, but met with so little success that they were forced 

 to abandon it. These abortive attempts, as well as those of the 

 French settler, Meneusier, at Cincinnati, attracted the attention of 

 Nicholas Longworth of the last-named city, who took much inter- 

 est in horticulture, and who, with the aid of his German tenants, 

 attempted the cultivation of the grape, but with little satisfaction, 

 until, about 1820, he noticed an account of the Catawba, of which 

 he immediately procured plants from Major Adlum. His success 

 with this variety, and the impetus which it gave to the cultivation 

 and improvement of the native grape in the United States, are too 

 well known to need recapitulation here. 



The Roxbury Russet apple was introduced into Ohio, in 1796, 

 by Israel and Aaron Waldow Putnam, who got the scions from 

 their father, Gen. Israel Putnam, at Pomfret, Conn. It was culti- 

 vated under the name of Putnam Russet, and was for many years 

 without a rival as a market fruit in Ohio, whole orchards being 

 planted with it. The settlers from North Carolina brought the 

 Rawles' Janet or Neverfail, the Horse, and Limber Twig. 



Among other interesting evidences of the early interest in horti- 

 culture in the West was the largest pear tree on record, known 

 from the name of the owner, Mr. Ockletree. It was a seedling, 

 brought from Pittsburg, Penn., in 1804, and planted near Vin- 

 cennes, Ind. In 1837 it produced one hundred and forty bushels 

 of pears, the largest crop recorded from it. In 1855 it meas- 

 ured ten and one-half feet in circumference at the smallest place 

 below the limbs, seventy-five feet across the top, and sixty-five 

 feet in height. In 1867 it was split down by a tornado, and 

 seven or eight years later the trunk also died. The fruit was of 

 inferior quality. 



Silas Wharton, a native of Bucks County, Penn., and an ac- 



