394 On the Virginia Crab Apple, 



given the name of Boa?i^s white crab, — To my inqui- 

 ries of the size and probable age of the original tree, 

 colonel Roan answered, That it was in the stem about 

 the bigness of his thigh — say seven or eight inches in 

 diameter, and sound. It was killed by accident. — Some 

 brush having been cut and thrown about it, the negro 

 children set lire to the brush, and so destroyed the tree. 

 Its natural growth is smaller than that of any other apple 

 tree; but it bears much sooner, after grafting; a circum- 

 stance which colonel Roan ascribed to the dwarfish cha- 

 racter of the tree : but it is a great bearer, every other 

 year. In extending his plantations of this apple, he 

 sets the trees nearer together than other sorts. He has 

 one orchard, in which the rows are sixty feet apart ; 

 but the trees are only fifteen feet apart in a row. — He 

 grafts the stocks when small, and so near the ground, 

 or rather a litde below the surface, that the grafts are, 

 eventually, partially sustained by their own roots. — 

 The wood of this tree, like that of Hughes's crab, is 

 close and hard. The skin of the apple is pale yellow ; 

 its size a little bigger than Hughes's crab ; and the 

 juice very sweet, but not abundant* The pulp being 

 more tender than that of Hughes's crab, more of it 

 mixes with the cider, in the process of grinding; where- 

 by the Jini?ig is more difficult than that of the cider of 

 Hughes's crab. It will occur to you, that the inter- 

 vals of sixty feet between the rows, were designed to 

 render the cultivation of any crops in the orchard more 

 easy and convenient, and such is colonel Roan's object 

 in the experiment. I am dear sir, your's, &c. 



Timothy Pickerinc. 

 Richard Peters, Es(^. 



