HORTICULTURE 



HORTICULTURE 



1505 



only as a refrain in contemporary writing. Indian 

 corn, tobacco and cotton early became the great staple 

 crops. 



The Indians cultivated corn, beans, pumpkins and 

 other plants when America was discovered. They soon 

 adopted some of the fruits which were introduced by 

 the colonists. William Penn and others found peaches 

 among the Indians. Orchards of peaches and apples 

 were found in western New York by Sullivan's raid 

 against the Six Nations in revolutionary times. 

 Josselyn, Roger Williams, Wood and others speak of 

 the corn and squashes of the Indians. The word squash 

 is adopted from the Indian name, squontersquash, 

 askutasquash, or isqouter squash. C. C. Jones, in his 

 "History of Georgia," in describing the explorations of 

 De Soto, says that before reaching the Indian town of 

 Canasagua (whose location was in Gordon County, 

 Georgia), DeSoto "was met by twenty men from the 

 village, each bearing a basket of mulberries. This 

 fruit was here abundant and well flavored. Plum and 

 walnut trees were growing luxuriantly throughout the 

 country, attaining a size and beauty, without planting 

 or pruning, which could not be 

 surpassed in the irrigated and well- 

 cultivated gardens of Spain." For 

 critical notes on the plants culti- 

 vated by the American aborigines, 

 see Gray and Trumbull, "American 

 Journal of Science," Vol. XXV 

 (April, May),Vol. XXVI (August). 

 For an account of plant products 

 used by the Indians, see G. K. 

 Holmes, "Cyclopedia of Ameri- 

 can Agriculture," Vol. IV, p. 24. 



"Fruit-growing among the In- 

 dians of Georgia and Alabama in 

 the early history of these states," 

 writes Berckmans, "is demon- 

 strated by the large quantity of 

 peaches which the Indian traders 

 of the early colonial period found 

 growing in the Creek, Cherokee 

 and Choc taw villages. It is on 

 record that Indians often made 

 long trips to other tribes for ex- 

 changing various articles of their 

 making, and thus the seed from 

 those peach trees was undoubtedly 

 procured from the Florida Indians, 

 who, in turn, procured these from 

 the trees planted by the Spanish 

 explorers. The peculiar type of 

 'Indian peaches,' found throughout 

 the South and recognized by the downy and striped 

 fruit and purple bark on the young growth, was intro- 

 duced from Spain and gradually disseminated by the 

 Indians. Apple-growing was quite extensively carried 

 on by the Cherokee Indians in the mountain regions 

 of Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina. The trees 

 being all seedlings, as grafting was likely unknown to 

 the Red Man, vestiges of old apple trees originally 

 planted by these denizens of the South are still occa- 

 sionally found in upper Georgia. Sixty years ago a 

 large collection of apples was introduced into cultiva- 

 tion, and today many of the best southern winter apples 

 owe their origin to the Indians, who procured the first 

 seeds from traders." 



One of the earliest glimpses of plant-growing in the 

 New World is an account in the "Philosophical Trans- 

 actions of the Royal Society," early in the eighteenth 

 century, by Chief Justice Paul Dudley, of Roxbury, 

 near Boston. In the "Abridgement of the Transac- 

 tions" are the following notes, amongst others, under the 

 date 1724: "The plants of England, as well as those of 

 the fields and orchards as of the garden, that have been 

 brought over into New England, suit very well with the 



96 



soil, and grow to perfection. The apples are as good as 

 those of England, and look fairer, as well as the pears; 

 but they have not all of the sorts. The peaches rather 

 excel those of England, and there is no trouble or 

 expence of walls for them; for the peach trees are all 

 standards, and Mr. Dudley has had, in his own garden, 

 700 or 800 fine peaches of the rare-ripes, growing at a 

 time on one tree. . . . The peach trees are large and 

 fruitful, and commonly bear in three years from the 

 stone. . . . The common cherries are not so good as 

 the Kentish cherries of England; and they have no 

 dukes, or heart-cherries, unless in two or three gardens." 

 It was reported that people of "late years have run 

 much upon orchards." The product of these orchards 

 was chiefly cider. "Some of their apple trees will make 

 six, some have made seven barrels of cider; but this is 

 not common; and the apples will yield from seven to 

 nine bushels for a barrel of cider: a good apple tree will 

 measure from 6 to 10 feet in girt." Dudley mentions 

 a bloomless apple, and "the tree was no graft." In 

 common with other new countries, New England 

 astonished persons with the luxuriant growth of the 



1851. Bertram's house as it was in 1895. Built in 

 !|| 1730-31. In the margin is the Petre pear, raised by 

 Bartram from a seedling sent from England in 1760 by 

 Lady Petre. 



plants. "An onion, set out for seed, will rise to 4 feet 

 9 inches in height. A parsnip will reach to 8 feet; red 

 orrice [orach will mount 9 feet; white orrice 8. In the 

 pastures he measured seed mullen 9 feet 2 inches in 

 height, and one of the common thistles above 8 feet." 

 Record is made of a pumpkin vine which grew unat- 

 tended in a pasture. It made a single stem which "ran 

 along over several fences, and spread over a large piece 

 of ground far and wide." "From this single vine were 

 gathered 260 pumpkins; one with another as large as a 

 half peck; enough in the whole, to fill a large tumbrel, 

 besides a considerable number of small and unripe 

 pumpkins." Indian corn was "the most prolific grain." 

 The observations and experiences of John Lawson in 

 North Carolina should not be overlooked. He was in 

 the country 1700 to 1708, and wrote a history of the 

 state, describing its natural productions. He found 

 considerable success there in grape-growing. 



The colonial ornamental gardens were probably 

 unlike our o.wn in the relative poverty of plants, 

 absence of landscape arrangement, rarity of green- 

 houses, and lack of smooth-shaven lawns (for the lawn- 

 mower was not invented till last century) . These gardens 



