THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 45 



not a trained naturalist, was a keen observer, a lover of nature and much 

 interested in the agricultural development of the Carolinas. Moreover, 

 he writes so simply, directly, and in a tone so temperate, in contrast to the 

 declamatory style of the times, that one accepts without question what 

 he says. We feel we are justified in quoting at some length Lawson's 

 description of Indian peaches: ^ 



" All peaches with us are standing; neither have we any wall fruit 

 in Carolina, for we have heat enough, and therefore do not require it. We 

 have a great many sorts of this fruit, which all thrive to admiration, peach 

 trees coming to perfection, with us, as easily as the weeds. A peach falling 

 to the ground brings a peach tree that shall bear in three years, or some- 

 times sooner. Eating peaches in our orchards makes them come up so 

 thick from the kernel, that we are forced to take a great deal of care to 

 weed them out, otherwise they make our land a wilderness of peach trees. 

 They generally bear so full that they break great part of their limbs down. 

 We have likewise very fair nectarines, especially the red, that clings to 

 the stone; the other yellow fruit, that leaves the stone. Of the last I have 

 a tree that most years brings me fifteen or twenty bushels. I see no 

 foreign fruit like this, for thriving in all sorts of land, and bearing its fruit 

 to admiration. I want to be satisfied about one sort of this fruit, which the 

 Indians claim as their own, and affirm they had it growing amongst them 

 before any Europeans came to America. 



" The fruit I will describe as exactly as I can. The tree grows very 

 large, most commonly as big as a handsome apple tree; the flowers are of 

 a reddish, murrey color, the fruit is rather more downy than the yellow 

 peach, and commonly very large and soft, being very full of juice. They 

 part freely from the stone, and the stone is much thicker than all the other 

 peach stones we have, which seems to me that it is a spontaneous fruit of 

 America; yet in those parts of America that we inhabit, I never could hear 

 that any peach trees were ever found growing in the woods; neither have the 

 foreign Indians, that live remote from the English,, any other sort. And 

 those living amongst us have a hundred of this sort for one other. They 

 are a hardy fruit, and are seldom damaged by the north-east blast, as 



' Lawson, John History of Carolina, 181-183. 1714. Reprinted at Raleigh, i860. Lawson's 

 History of Carolina contains the best description of the natural resources of the southern Atlantic sea- 

 board published in colonial times. It is a book of nature rather than of history and one of fascinating 

 interest which cannot be read without admiring and loving the author and mourning his sad fate. Poor 

 Lawson was burned at the stake by the Indians in 171 1. We cannot refrain from quoting his description 

 of North Carolina as printed on page 79 of his history: " A delicious country, being placed in that girdle 

 of the world which affords wine, oil, fruit, grain, and silk, with other rich commodities, besides a sweet 

 air, moderate climate, and fertile soil. These are the blessings, under Heaven's protection, that spin out 

 the thread of life to its utmost extent, and crown our days with the sweets of health and plenty, which, 

 when joined with content, render the possessors the happiest race of men upon earth." 



