THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 55 



Kalm says: ' " Peach-trees have often been planted here (Albany, New 

 York) and never would succeed well. This was attributed to a worm 

 which lives in the ground, and eats through the root, so that the tree dies. 

 Perhaps the severity of the winter contributes much to it." We have 

 another reference to show that winter-killing must have been a discouraging 

 factor in peach-culture in this part of New York in early days as it is now. 

 Cadwallader Colden, appointed first surveyor-general of New York in 

 1719, and in 1761 lieutenant-governor of the Province, a botanist of note, 

 who had a patent of land in what is now Orange County, wrote in 1737 

 that cold had killed the peach-trees the previous winter. 



The traveler who visits New York today finds many orchards on the 

 Hudson but in them he sees comparatively few peaches. The peach is 

 much more at home two hundred miles west about the Central Lakes and 

 along the shores of Lake Ontario Here, it is interesting to learn, peaches 

 were grown in considerable quantities long before the region was settled 

 by the whites — how long we have no record nor do we know much of the 

 character of the fruit John Bartram in his Travels from Pensilvaiua to 

 Onondago, Oswego and the Lake Ontario, an account of a journey made in 

 1743, mentions apples, peaches, plums and grapes growing about the 

 Indian villages passed through on his route. Whether these peaches came 

 from the white settlements nearer the Atlantic, or at a much earlier date 

 from the Indians to the South, or both, we cannot even surmise. 



Siillivan's army, which came to this region in 1779 to chastise the 

 Indians, found and destroyed considerable numbers of fruit-trees, among 

 them many peaches. After Sullivan's raid the region was quickly settled 

 by whites who, following the examples of the Indians, planted apples and 

 peaches, the orchard soon becoming a prominent asset to every farm. 

 Collections of pioneer papers frequently mention the great adaptability 

 of these lake-regions to peaches. In Conover's History of Kanadasaga 

 and Geneva ^ there are sixteen references to the peach-orchards about Seneca 

 and Cayuga lakes in and about the year 1 800. As in the South, the products 

 seem to have been used chiefly in making peach-brandy. 



David Thomas,' Aurora, Cayuga County, New York, was the pioneer 



' Kalm, Peter Travels into North America 2:244, 245. 1771. 



' Mss. in the library of Hobart College, Geneva, N. Y. 



' David Thomas is now scarcely known in horticulture except as he is spoken of as the father of 

 America's well-known agricultural, horticultural and pomological writer, John Jacob Thomas. Yet the 

 father merits recognition for his work in agriculture and horticulture. David Thomas was a Quaker, 

 born in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, in 1776 He became a civil engineer and moved to Aurora, 



