THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 5 1 



Melocoton peach in \^irginia.' " Here is such plenty of peaches that they 

 give them to their hogs; some of them, called malachotoons, are as big 

 as a lemon and resemble it a little." The histor\^ of the word melocoton, 

 by the way, is interesting. It comes from the Latin meluni cotoneum, 

 literally, apple-quince. The corruption is of Spanish origin and in Spain 

 " melocoton " is a common name for the peach. The word, however, 

 is now common enough in English, no less than 29 variant spellings being 

 found in the dictionaries and even.'^ extensive list of peaches having a 

 number of varieties with melocoton as a prefix or an affix to the name. 



Passing now to the northern colonies we find that the history of the 

 peach in Pennsylvania begins with the history of the State. William 

 Penn fovmded Philadelphia in 1682 and a year later, in describing the new 

 country, names the peach as one of its assets: ^ " There are also very good 

 peaches, and in great quantities; not an Indian plantation without them, 

 but whether naturally here at first, I know not. However, one may have 

 them by bushels for little; they make a pleasant drink; and I think not 

 inferior to any peach you have in England, except the true Newington." 



It would be hard to find a part of the earth better fitted in soil and 

 climate for sure and abounding harvests of peaches than the Chesapeake 

 peach-belt extending up through Maryland and taking in Delaware, New 

 Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. We may be sure, then, that if the 

 Indians were growing peaches in the abundance described by Penn in what 

 is now Philadelphia, peach-orchards were not less common in all of the 

 Chesapeake belt. That the whole region was bountifully supplied with 

 this delicious fruit when settled by whites is further indicated, however, 

 in a letter written by Mahlon Stacy from the " Falls of the Delaware," 

 New Jersey, in 1680, to his brother Revell in England. He says:^ 



" I have travelled through most of the places that are settled, and 

 some that are not ; and in every place I find the country very apt to answer 

 the expectation of the diligent. I have seen orchards laden with fruit 

 to admiration; their very limbs torn to pieces by the weight, and most 

 delicious to the taste and lovely to behold I have seen an apple tree from 

 a pippin kernel yield a barrel of curious cider, and peaches in such plenty 

 that some people took their carts a peach gathering; I could not but smile 

 at the conceit of it; they are very delicate fruit, and hang almost like our 

 onions that are tied on ropes." 



' Oldmixon, John The British Empire in America 2nd Ed. London. 1:440. 1741. 



' Watson Annals of Phila. i :46. 1856. 



' Raum, John O. History of New Jersey, 108. 



