22 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



for animals. The practice of sowing grass-seed, as we have 

 seen, never became common in the colonies. It was not 

 generally adopted till about the time of the Revolution, 

 though here and there an individual farmer may have tried to 

 see what he could do to help Nature clothe the surface of his 

 old fields, but any general or systematic attempt to cultivate 

 grasses for hay was wholly unknown and unthought of. This 

 culture was of recent origin in this as well as in the mother 

 country, and is the result of modern improvement in agri- 

 culture. 



The culture of the potato, though introduced early in the 

 history of the colonies, being among the seed ordered for the 

 Plymouth Colony as early as 1629, was not recognized as a 

 very important and indispensable crop till about the middle of 

 the last century, when it had come to be widely known and 

 esteemed as an article of food, for we know that in 1747 

 about seven hundred bushels were exported from South Caro- 

 lina. It was the sweet potato that first came to be regarded 

 as a delicacy in England, and the allusions of some rather 

 early English writers undoubtedly refer to this, rather than 

 the common potato. 



CULTIVATION OF FRUIT. 



Very little attention was paid to the raising of fruits pre- 

 vious to the Revolution, except for the manufacture of cider. 

 The first apples were raised upon Governor's Island, in the 

 harbor of Boston, from which, oh the 10th of October, 1639, 

 " ten fair pippens were brought, there being not one apple 

 or pear tree planted in any part of the country but upon that 

 island." The first nursery of young trees in this country was 

 that planted by Governor Endicott on his farm at Salem, now 

 Danvers, in 1640, and.it is related that he sold five hundred 

 apple-trees for two hundred and fifty acres of land. The 

 systematic cultivation of fruit was not common in this country 

 previous to the Revolution, nor did it become so till within 

 the last fifty years. Orchards were set out upon many farms, 

 but they were designed chiefly for cider. Much greater care, 

 however, Avas taken to raise good fruits in New York, New 

 Jersey, and Pennsylvania, than in New England, and several 

 noted orchards and nurseries existed there in the latter part 



