HORTICULTURE 



coasts to obedioi 

 their garden l>r:i 

 good as ever I ■ i 

 their beets, par- 

 parsnips, and .mi 

 is ordinary to Ijt- 

 erend writer); 

 thriving, 



haiidry. What with 



li' '-'iHsonin'KKg)'; 



I K cour turnips, 

 . I :inil sweeter than 



s;i\ s the same rev- 

 d asparagus, — both 



tlieir radishes and 



lettuce; their sorrel, parsley, chervil, and marigold, for 

 pot-herbs; and their sage, thyme, savory of both kinds, 

 clary, anise, fennel, coriander, spearmint, and penny- 

 royal, for sweet herbs, — not to mention the Indian pom- 

 plons and melons and squanter-squashes, 'and other odde 

 fruits of the country, '-the first-named of which had got 

 to be so well appr.ivc-.l imii.iiLT the settlers, when Josse- 

 lyn wrote in 1072. tliat. \vh;it lir calls 'the ancient New- 

 England standing .li>li' lur inay call it so now!) was 

 made of them; and, tiiially. tlieir pleasant, familiar 

 flowers, l.Tveii.l.r rotten ami hollyhocks and satin ('we 

 call this licri,.. ill \M,r,,lke, sattin,' says Gerard; 'and, 

 amont,' otit \\ mim n. it is called honestie') and gillyflow- 

 ers, wlnt li 111. lilt pinks as well, and dear English roses, 

 and egUmtiUL. — _\ . s. possibly, hedges of eglantine,— 

 surely the ganlens of New England, fifty years after the 

 settlement of the country, were as well stocked as they 

 were a hundred and fifty years after. Nor were the first 

 planters long behindhand in fruit. Even at his first 

 visit, in 1039, our author was treated with * half a score 

 of very fair pippins,' from the (jovernor's Island in 

 Boston Harbor; though there was then, he says, 'not 

 one apple tree nor pear planted \pt in no part of the 

 countrcy but upon tlint isl-,,id.' Riif In- has a much bet- 

 ter ace. unt f.. ^'i\.- Ill II., I ''I'll. .|iiiiices, cherries, 

 damsons, s. t til. .1 uiii s , «.,ik .M ninalad and pre- 

 served il,inis..iis 1, t.. I., nil I Willi ill . M ry house. Our 

 fruit trees pi-.isp, I .ii.mi.l inth .-apple trees, pear trees, 

 quince trees, clii 1 1 \ ti..s. |,linn trees, barberry trees. 

 I have observed, w itli ,iiliiiii.iti..ii, that the kernels sown, 

 or the succors i.l.iiit.'.l, pi. ..in..- as fair and good fruit, 

 without grafting, .is tin- ii.. tr.mi whence they 

 taken. The countrey is r. pi. nisli. ,i ,Mt 

 orchards. It was atfirmt .1 i.\ ..m Mi W 

 trate in Connecticut C.il..n\i. it th. ( 

 {of which I was), aboard tin slnj. I . .m 

 he made five hundred hogsheads ul .sj der out of his own 

 orchard in one year.'— \'t)ijayes, p. lb9-90. Our bar- 

 berry bushes, now so familiar inhabitants of the hedge- 

 rows of eastern New England, should seem from this 

 to have come, with the eglantines, from the gardens of 

 the first settlers. Barberries 'are planted in most of our 

 English gardens,' says Gerard." Relics of .Tossel>n's 

 time still persist in old apple trees in New England 

 (Fig. 1078). The f.iregoing lists and remarks show that 

 the colonists early bnmght their familiar home plants to 

 the new country ; and there are many collateral evidences 

 of the same character. There was long and arduous ex- 

 perimenting with plants and methods. Several things 

 which were tried on a large scale failed so completely, 

 either from uncongenial conditions or for economic rea- 

 sons, that they are now unknown to us as commercial 

 crops ; amongst these are indigo, silk and the wine grape. 

 The histories of these things can be traced only as a 

 refrain is cotemporary 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 Jis^m^, aquontersquaah, askuta- 

 squash, or isqoutersqtiash. C.C.Jones, in his "History 

 of Georgia," in describing the explorations of De Soto, 

 says that before reaching the Indian town of Canasa- 

 gua (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, at- 

 taining a size and beauty, without planting or pruning, 



HORTICULTURE 757 



be surpassed in the irrigated and well- 

 ns of Spain." For critical notes on the 

 i l.y the American aborigines, see Gray 

 \ni.T. .Journ. of Science, vol. 25 (April, 



•I'luiiKi.. Willi,' among the Indians of Georgia and 

 Alabama in the early history of these states," writes 

 Berckmaus, "is demonstrateil 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 exchangingvarious articles 



of their making, and thus the seed from those peach 

 trees was undoubtedly procured from the Florida In- 

 dians, who, in turn, procured these from the trees 

 planted by the Spanish explorers. The peculiar type of 

 'Indian peaches,' found throughout the South and rec- 

 ognized by the downy and striped fruit and purple 

 bark on the young growth, was introdticed from Spain and 

 gradually disseminated by the Indians. Apple-growing 

 was quite extensively carried on by the Cherokee In- 

 dians in the mountain regions of Georgia, Alabama and 

 North Carolina. The trees being all seedlings, as graft- 

 ing was likely unknown to the Red Man, vestiges of old 

 apple trees originally planted by these denizens of the 

 South are still occasionally found in upper Georgia. 

 Fifty years ago a large collection of apples was intro- 

 duced into cultivation, and to-day many of the best 

 southern winter apples owe their origin to the Indians, 

 who procured the first seeds from traders." 



One of the earliest srlimpses of plant-growing in the 

 New World i^ an aic.unt in the Philosophical Trans- 

 actions of til.- K.nal s.,.nfv, early in the eighteenth 

 century,by Clii. f .lu-tw. I'aiil Dudley, of Roxbury, near 

 Boston. In the Al.ri.k'einiiit of the Transactions are the 



