g STATE POMOLOQICAL SOCIETY. 



the present towns of Newcastle and Edgecomb. Among the 

 oldest relics of ancient civilization on the banks of the Sheepscot 

 are found the remains of old apple trees. 



Walter Philips was a noted gardener and public oflScer within 

 this territory from 1660 to 1676. His house, surrounded with an 

 apple orchard, stood on a great hill just below the lower, or " salt- 

 water falls" of the Daraariscotta river. 



In 16T6 the Sheepscot settlements were broken up and the in- 

 habitants driven away by the Indians. Philips fled to Salem, 

 Mass., and many of the other inhabitants to Boston, whence they 

 returned in 1682. Prior to their return they met in Boston and 

 " did joyntly Bind themselves to stand to severall articles of Agree- 

 ment," &c., one of which provided that " with the exception of 

 their yrm7 trees, their barns and fencing stuff," they were "to 

 relinquish all former rights, titles, and privileges." * 



Hon. E. Wilder Farley of Newcastle, whose farm appears, 

 according to Mr. Sewall's description above, to embrace the pre- 

 cise location of a portion of the Philips orchard, furnishes me the 

 following interesting memoranda concerning the old orchards of 

 Newcastle, information which was sought by me and furnished by 

 him without any thought of the coincidence of location above re- 

 ferred to, but which seems to indicate the existence of an orchard 

 still standing, with a continuous history of more than two hundred 

 years ; and may possibly entitle Walter Philips " the upright 

 magistrate and planter of New Dartmouth " to the additional 

 distinction of being the first regular orchardist in Maine, f 



Mr. Farley's letter contains so much valuable information, not 

 only with regard to the history of orcharding in his locality, but 

 also on the theory and practice of orcharding in general, that I 

 feel justified in inserting it at length, ommitting only the formal 

 parts. He says : 



" My grandfather came on the farm, most of which I now 

 occupy, in 1772 or 1773. My understanding is that its principal 

 field, bordering on the Damariscotta river, was then pretty well 

 cleared and cultivated. Fifty years since, there were standing in 

 that field a dozen or more apple trees, most of them of large size, 

 rough, homely and ancient; some of them two to two and one-half 



* Thornton's Pemaquid papers. 



f Circumstances seetn to indicate, however, that the " Old Orchard" in Saoo, the 

 "Gorges tree" in York, and those mentioned as having stood on the upper "Sheepscot 

 Farms," as well as some yet to be mentioned in the town of Bristol, were all of an earlier 

 date than can be assigned with certainly to the planting of Philips' orchard. 



