CLIMATE AND HORTICULTURE OF NEW ENGLAND. 19 



for the same reason that the Chaplain of Newgate, in Jonathan 

 Wild's time, gave for his love for rum punch, — " because it was no- 

 where spoken against in the Scriptures." He found a new home 

 for the most useful fruit that has been given to man, and a soil and 

 climate that have improved its quality and increased its vahie be- 

 yond any possible expectation of the earlier cultivators. Pears 

 were not neglected : the trees of common, heavy bearing varieties 

 grew to great size in large orchards, the fruit being made into perr}", 



— another species of " red-eye," now happil}' forgotten. It may be 

 noted that the canker-worm was waiting for the advent of the ap- 

 ple, and the curculio was in ambush for the plum. 



This cider interest may perhaps explain the fact that no nur- 

 series of improved grafted fruit were established in New England 

 until our lime. The seedling trees must have grown with great 

 rapidity and produced enormous!}', trees making seven to nine bar- 

 rels of cider being common in all orchards. Villages of forty to 

 fifty families made from two to three thousand barrels of cider ; 

 every cellar was full of it ; it was drunk, sold, given away, and 

 there were " woes and babblings" in consequence. 



On Long Island, the Linngean Botanic Garden of the Prince 

 famil}', at Flushing, was commenced in the middle of the last cen- 

 tury. Here were splendid collections of foreign and native fruit and 

 ornamental trees. There were other nurseries on the island ; also 

 in New Jersej', Peunsj'lvania, and South Carolina, and gentlemen 

 of this neighborhood had to send there, or to England, for trees. 

 In 1822, John Lowell, writing in the " Massachusetts Agricultural 

 Repository," vol. vii, p. 137, said: "We are utterly destitute in 

 New England of nurseries for fruit trees on an extensive scale. 

 We have no cultivators upon whom we can call for a supply of the 

 most common plants of the smaller fruits, no place to which we 

 can go for plants to ornament our grounds. We have not a single 

 seedsman who can furnish us with seeds of annual flowers upon 

 which we can put reliance." A year later he wrote in the same 

 journal complaining that, " A traveller ma}' traverse Massachusetts 

 from Boston to Albany and not be able to procure a plate of fruit, 



— except wild strawberries, blackberries, and whortleberries, — 

 unless from the hospitality of private gentlemen." 



The Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture had been 

 established in 1792, b}' wise, public-spirited, generous gentlemen. 

 It became a beneficent institution, and still flourishes in a youth 

 that I trust may be immortal. The value of its assistance to the 



