20 AMERICAN POMOLOGY. 



trees. Tlie colonists brought plants and seeds. Even 

 now, in many parts of the country, we hear many good 

 fruits designated as English, to indicate that they are con- 

 Bidered_ superior to the native ; and we are still importing 

 choice varieties from Europe and other quarters of the 

 glohe. 



The roving tribes of Indians who inhabited this coun- 

 try when discovei'ed and settled by the whites, had no or- 

 chards — ^they lived by the chase, and only gathered such 

 fruits as were native to the soil. Among the earliest at- 

 tempts to civilize them, however, those that exerted the 

 greatest influence, were efforts to make them an agricul- 

 tural people, and of these the planting of fruit-trees was 

 one of the most successful. In many parts of the coun- 

 try we find relics of these old Indian orchards still remain- 

 ing, and it is probable that from the apple seeds sent by 

 the general government for distribution among the Cher- 

 okees in Georgia, we are now reaping some of the most 

 valuable fruits of this species. The early French settlers 

 were famous tree-planters, and we find their traces across 

 the continent, from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mex- 

 ico. These consist in noble pear and apple trees, grown 

 from seeds planted by them, at their early and scattered 

 posts or settlements. These were made far in advance of 

 the pioneers, who have, at a later period, formed the van 

 of civilization, that soon spread into a solid phalanx in its 

 march throughout the great interior valley of the continent. 



On the borders of civilization we sometimes meet with 

 a singular being, more savage than polished, and yet use- 

 ful in his way. Such an one in the early settlement of 

 the northwestern territory was Johnny Apple-seed — a sim- 



