323 Notices. — North America. 



growth in regular succession, and pruning them to the stem after they have 

 borne one crop ; this plan I shall partially adopt this year, but wait the 

 event before I step out of what is said to be the general mode. I have now 

 three kinds of grapes in my vineyard : the Cape, which I procured from 

 Vevay (of the wine from which, and the produce, from 250 to 200 gallons 

 per acre, I spoke in a former letter); and the Madeira ajid theLisbon, which I 

 procured from Harmony. To these I shall shortly add the black Hamburgh, 

 the sweetwater, the muscadine, and the Isabella, a native American grape, 

 highly spoken of, all which are now growing in Mr. Pell's nursery, of which 

 I now have the management. Mr. Pell and his family having left this for 

 New York, I have engaged to superintend his nursery (which had been 

 established at considerable trouble and expence) for five years, in consider- 

 ation of receiving half the proceeds, after deducting labour and expences. 

 I am also to receive half the produce of his vineyard. 



" I expected to have made some wine this year, there being every ap- 

 pearance of a great crop, but a white frost, which happened a few nights ago, 

 has cut off two-thirds of the bloom here, and considerably injured my own, 

 but not nearly in so great a degree, owing to the circumstance of my vine- 

 yard being planted in a more elevated situation. 



" Vines and peaches should always in this country be planted in high 

 ground ; I had plenty of peaches from the orchard at the house last year, 

 while from the rows of trees below, the first of which is only three chains 

 from it, and the descent not more than ten feet, I had not a single peach, 

 and this year I have but few upon the four lower trees , but plenty upon the 

 upper double row ; the want of the knowledge of this fact has occasioned 

 great disappointment to many persons who have planted their peach 

 orchards in low, level situations ; till this year they have hardly any fruit, 

 and even now, although their trees blossomed well, and the fruit was well 

 set, it has been very much cut up by the frost which I mentioned. It was 

 thought, when I arrived in 1821, that the climate of this country was un- 

 favourable to peaches; that year they had totally failed through this State ; 

 the next year there was abundance in the elevated situations; in 1825 the 

 blossom was all destroyed in embryo, by a severe frost in the beginning of 

 January, which, coming on immediately after rain, glazed all the twigs with 

 ice. 1824 was a peach year, and so, in all probability, will this be. You 

 will see by the plan, that I intend to supply the places of all the peach- 

 trees below the house with other fruit. All the peach-trees hitherto planted 

 in this part being raised from stones, there is, of course, a great variety in 

 the fruit. Some of mine last year were very delicious, and none of them 

 bad. There is a small collection of the most esteemed varieties through 

 the Union, in the nursery, which I shall this year increase if I find any 

 super-excellent. I bud upon plum-stocks, which I expect will render the 

 trees more lasting ; fourteen or fifteen years being said to be the utmost 

 period of their perfection in this country. Their rapidity of growth is, in- 

 deed, very great. In order to give you some idea of it, I have measured one 

 of mine, not the largest, but the most regular and beautiful tree I ever be- 

 held. It was planted in March 1822, and was then one year old, and 

 headed down to within eighteen inches of the ground. When pruned in 

 the Spring following, I left six shoots at regular distances to form the head, 

 and it now spreads over a circleof sixteen feet diameter,is seventeen feet high, 

 and measures eighteen inches round the stem. It bore many dozens of 

 peaches last year, and has now as many hundreds upon it, about the size of 

 a tick bean. Of nectarines, almonds, apricots, plums, and cherries, we 

 have had no experience ; we have them in the nursery,where they grow well, 

 but. are not old enough to bear ; but I have fruit set on the mayduke 

 cherry, and on the almond. Two of the latter are planted at the extremi- 

 ties of my flower-borders; they are but one year's shoot from the bud, in- 



