98 071 Apple Trees and Grafting. 



My apples are nearly all blasted and fallen off, not 

 with frosts but cold wet rains ; some I observed fell 

 off before others, according as I presume to the delicacy 

 of their constitutions ; my pomme roi fell first. 



Those that hung best were the New England seek 

 no furthers y and the noted Townsend apples; can this be 

 owing to their being natural fruit of the country ? 



I am respectfully your friend, 

 Samuel Preston.* 



* Mr. Preston having had great experience in orchards, 

 we give publicity to his information with pleasure. We can- 

 not accord in his conclusion, though the facts of longevity 

 of the old apple trees are curious. The crab apple alone we 

 believe to be a native. There is no trace in our forests of 

 other apples ; which are found always in settlements^ either 

 of the Indians, or their successors. The peach though called 

 perszca^ from its being brought from Persia into Europe^ — we 

 believe is also a native of the southern regions of our conti- 

 nent ; where it is found growing wild and spontaneously in 

 great varieties in the forests ; most commonly near streams, 

 the sea, or great waters. 



We by no means make the assertion j but it would not be 

 a more visionary conjecture, that, if the apples mentioned 

 were not imported by Europeans, they might have been 

 brought from Tartary^ or those parts of the other continent 

 from whence our aborigines wandered. The facts are too 

 isolated and few, to draw from them any solid conclusions. 

 The pijrus malus^ or apple, as we see it in our orchards, is said, 

 by botanists, to be an improved variety of the crab or 

 wilding. Accident may have produced some, and careful cul- 

 tivation others, of the 40 or 50 varieties we possess. But that 



