56 THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 



horticulturist, fruit-grower and nvirseryman in this part of the State and 

 soon after coming to New York in 1S05, we learn from several references 

 to his orchards and nurseries in his own writings, began planting peaches. 

 All of the named varieties from the South and East were tried in his orchard 

 and if valuable were propagated and sold from his nursery. According 

 to his son, John Jacob Thomas, the pomologcial writer, he had in 1830 " the 

 most extensive and valuable collection of bearing trees west of the Hudson." 

 Through him the western counties of the State were stocked with named 

 peaches and other fruits. 



Of peaches in the New England colonies, we need say but little. Except 

 in favored parts of Connecticut and Massachusetts, this fruit was little 

 grown in these northern colonies. It is not at all probable that New 

 England Indians ever planted peaches and for a generation after the whites 

 came the struggle for the necessities of life kept them from indulging in so 

 great a luxury as a peach-orchard. Strong drink was as commonly used 

 by the Puritans as by the Churchmen in Virginia and peach-brandy would 

 have been as acceptable but it was easier to produce cider, and rum from 

 the West Indies could be had with little trouble. Still, peaches were 

 sparingly grown in the New England colonies. 



The Massachusetts Company in 1629 sent peach-pits, along with seeds 

 of other fruits, to be planted by the colonists.^ Twelve years later George 

 Fenwick, Saybrook, Connecticut, writes to Governor Winthrop that he is 

 " prettie well storred with chirrie & peach trees." - Justice Paul Dudley,^ 

 who seems to have been the leading horticulturist in Massachusetts in his 

 time, writes in 1726: " Our Peaches do rather excel those of England, and 

 then we have not the Trouble or Expence of Walls for them; for our Peach 



Cayuga County, New York, in 1805 and began to practice his profession. Later he became one of the 

 engineers in charge of the construction of the Erie Canal and still later performed a similar service in 

 building the Welland Canal. Soon after, we find him a nurseryman and fruit-grower at Aurora. Through- 

 out his entire life, his son writes, he was interested in horticulture, pomology and botany and by his writ" 

 ings on these subjects, published principally in the Genesee Farmer, then the leading agricultural paper 

 in western New York, and in Travels in the Western Country in 1816, published in Auburn in 1819, David 

 Thomas performed most valuable services in forwarding the cultivation of fruits. He was a corresponding 

 member of the London Horticultural Society and of the Linnaean Society of Paris. His articles in the 

 Genesee Farmer and other agricultural papers furnish the most authoritative statements we have in regard 

 to the early history of fruit-growing in western New York The name of David Thomas ought long to 

 be preserved by horticulturists of the State and country together with that of his illustrious son, John 

 Jacob Thomas. 



' Mass. Records 1:24. 



' Mass. Hist. Collections 4th Ser. VI:49g. 



' History of the Mass. Horl. .Soc. 16. 1829-1878 



