2 STATE POMOLOQICAL SOCIETY. 



all parts of it. Indeed, many valuable fruits are indigenous to our 

 soil. The late Dr. Holmes, in one of bis publisbed addresses, 

 alluding to this subject, on the authority of William Morrcll, who 

 "came over in 1623, with Capt. Robert Gorges, to Wessagusset, 

 which is now the town of Wej^mouth, Mass.," and staid a year, 

 mentions as indigenous to Ne\v England, the wild cherry, filbert, 

 walnut, and the ground nut, (Glycine apius,)"^ but some other 

 authorities, with apparently better opportunities for observation 

 than Morrell enjoyed, give a more extended list. 



Josselyri, the author of " New England Rarities," who visited 

 Maine in 1638, and again in 1663, remaining, the first time a little 

 more than a year, and the last time eight 3'ears, — at the plantation 

 of his brother, Mr. Henry Josselyn, (Deputy-Governor of the 

 Province, &c.,) at Scarboro', and of whom Mr. Edward Tucker- 

 man, in his introduction to a recent edition of that rare and curi- 

 ous book, says — " it may at least be said, that at the time he wrote, 

 there is no reason to suppose that any other person knew as much 

 as he did of the botany of New England," — mentions, in addition 

 to those named above, the strawberry, blackberry, raspberry, 

 gooseberry, red and black currants, " Bill Berry" (whortleberry,) 

 cloud-berry, cranberry, chestnuts, " llaw-lhorn, the Haws being 

 as big as Services, and very good to eat, and not so astringent as 

 .the Haws in England," [by which the editor supposes is meant 

 ^CVa/cB^M-s tome?ito.sa, and perhaps, also, G. cuccinea,] " Plumb Tree, 

 -several kinds, bearing some long, round, white, yellow, red, and 

 black Plumbs, all differing in their Fruit from those in England."! 

 -" Vine [grapes] much differing in the Fruit, all of them very fleshy, 

 some reasonably pleasant; others have a taste of Gun Powder, 

 -and these grow in Swamps, and low, wet Grounds." 



Josselyn, however, does not locale the growth of the vine in 

 New England, (a point in regard to which more will be said here- 

 after;) but in order to do this, we may have recourse to the 

 works of Champlain, the chronicler who accompanied de Monts in 

 his voyage of discover^' along the coast, southward from the St. 

 Croix, in 1605. 



John de Laet, in a geograpliical work of high reputation, written 

 in the Latin language, and published at Leyden, about 1614, gives 



* Dr. Holmes also mentions the wild plum, cherry, strawberry, raspberry, oil nut and 

 beech nut. 



t " The plumbs of the country be better for plumbs than the cherries be for cherries. 

 They bo black and yellow; about the bigness of damsons; of a reasonable good taste." 

 Wood's A'ew England Prospect, chap. 5, 



