HORTK^liLTL'RR 



IIORTIOULTURE 



r.)t 



coasts to obedience to lL]nii;lish liusbundry. What with 

 their garden beans, and Indian beans, and pease ('as 

 ^ood as ever I eat in Eny,land,' says Hiitj;-;j;inson in 1029) ; 

 their beets, parsnips, tnrnips, and carrots four turnips, 

 parsnips, and carrots are botli Ijigger and sweeter than 

 is ordinary to be found in Enghind,' says the same rev- 

 erend writer); tlieir cabbages and asparagus, — both 

 thriving, we are t<dd, exceedingly; their radishes and 

 lettuce; their sorrel, parsley, chervil, an<l marigold, for 

 pot-herbs; and their sage, thyme, savory of l)uth kinds, 

 clary, anise, fennel, coriander, spearmint, and penny- 

 royal, for sweet herbs, — not to mention the Indian pom- 

 pions and melons and squanter-squaslies, 'and other odde 

 fruits of the country, ' — the tirst-named of which liad got 

 to be so well approved among the settlers, when Josse- 

 lyn wrote in l(i72, tluit, wliat he calls 'the ancient New- 

 England standing disli' (we may call it so now!) was 

 made of them; and, tinally, their pleasant, familiar 

 Howers, lavender-cotton and hollyhocks and satin ('we 

 call this lierbe, in Norfolke, sattin,' says Gerard; 'and, 

 among our women, it is called honestie') and gillyHow- 

 ers, which meant pinks as well, and dear English roses, 

 and eglantine,- yes, possil)ly, hedges of eghmtine,— 

 surely the gardens of New England, lifty years after the 

 settlement of the country, were as well stocked as they 

 were a hundre<l and fifty years after. Nor were the tirst 

 planters long behindhauil in fruit. Even at his first 

 visit, in 1(139, our auttior was treated with 'half a score 

 of very fair pippins,' from the Governor's Island in 

 Boston Harbor; thougli there was then, he says, 'not 

 one apple tree nor pear planted yet in no part of the 

 countrey but upon that island.' But he has a much bet- 

 ter account to give in 1G71 : 'The <|uinces, cherries, 

 damsons, set the dames a work. Marmalad and jn-e- 

 served damsons is to be met witli in every house. Our 

 fruit trees prosper al)undantly, — apple trees, pear trees, 

 quince trees, eherry trees, plum trees, Itarberry trees. 

 I have ol)served, with admiration, that the kernels sown, 

 or the succors planted, produce as fair and good fruit, 

 without grafting, as the tree from whence tliey were 

 taken. The countri.\v is n-jdenished witlt fair ami large 

 orchards. It was uttirmed by one Mr. Wooleut (a magis- 

 trate in Connectiout Colony), at the Captain's niesse 

 (of which I was), altoard the ship I came home in, that 

 he made five hundred hogsheads of syder out of his own 

 orchard in one ycur.'' — \'i>i(a(/e.s, p. 189-90. Our bar- 

 berry bushes, now so familiar inliabitants of the hedge- 

 rows of eastern New England, should seem fmm this 

 to have come, with the eglantines, from the gardens at 

 the first settlers. Barberries 'are planted in most of our 

 English gardens,' says Gerard." Relics of Josselyns 

 time still persist in old apple trees in New England 

 (Fig. 1078). The foregoing lists and remarks sliow that 

 the colonists early brought tlieir familiar home pUmts to 

 the new country: and there are many collateral evidences 

 of the same character. There was long and arduous ex- 

 perimenting with plants and methods. Several things 

 which were tried on a large scale failed so completely, 

 either from uncongenial conditions or for economic rea- 

 sons, that they are now unknown to us as commercial 

 crops ; amongst these are indigo, silk and the wine grape. 

 The histories of these things can be traced only as a 

 refrain is cotemporary writing. Indian corn, tobacco 

 and cotton early became the great staple crops. 



The Indians cultivated corn, beans, pumpkins and 

 other plants when America was discovered. They soon 

 adopted some of the fruits which were introduced by 

 the colonists. William Penn and others found peaches 

 among the Indians. Orchards of peaches and apples 

 were found in western New York by Sullivan's raid 

 agaiustthe Six Nations in revolutionary times. Josselyn, 

 Roger Williams, Wood and others speak of the corn 

 and squashes of the Indians. The word squash is 

 adopted from the Indian na^me, sqKonfersqiin.sJi , fi.sknln- 

 aqiim^lt, or isqoutersqi<asJt. C. C. Jones, in his "History 

 of Georgia," in describing the explorations of De Soto, 

 says that before reaching the Indian town of Canasa- 

 gua (whose location was in Gordon county, Georgia), 

 DeSoto "was met by twenty men from the village, each 

 bearing a basket of mulberries. This fruit was here 

 abundant and well flavored. Plum and walniit trees 

 were growing luxuriantly throughout the country, at- 

 taining a size and beauty, without planting or pruning, 



which could not be surpassed in the irrigated and well- 

 cultivatrd gardens of Spain." For critical notes on the 



plants cultivated by the American aborigines, see tJray 

 and Trumbull, Amer. Journ. cd' Science,' vol, 25 (April, 

 I\[ay), vol. 'Hi (August). 



"Fruit-growing among tin- Indians of Georgia am! 

 Alabama in the early history ot these states,'" writes 

 Berckmans, "is dem<mstrated" l)y the large quantity of 

 peaches which the Indian traders of the early colonial 

 period found growing in the Creek. Cherokee and Choc- 

 law villages. It is ou reconl that Indians often made 

 long trips to other tribt-s for ex<dianging various articles 



1077. Earliest picture of an American plant. 

 ^bjuardes. I.'n I. 



of their making, and tlius tin- seed from those peach 

 trees was undouijfedly procun-d from the Florida In- 

 dians, who, in turn, y)rocured these from the trees 

 ])lantcil by the Spanish explorers. Tlic i)e**uliar typ<' of 

 'Indian peaches," found throughout the South and rcr-- 

 ognized by the downy and si ripnd fniit and purple 

 bark on the young growth, ^\';ls iiitroduf rd from Spain and 

 gradually disseminated by the Indians. Apple-growintr 

 was quite extensively carried on by tlie (.'herokee In- 

 dians in the mountain regions ni (4(-orgia. Alabama and 

 North Carolina. The trees beiui^ all seedlings, as graft- 

 ing was likely unknowm to the Red Man, vestiges of old 

 a])ple trees iiriginally planted by these denizens of the 

 South are still ocrasionally found in upper Georgia. 

 Fifty years ago a hirge collertiim of apples was intro- 

 duced into cultivation, and to-day nutny of the best 

 southern winter ajudes owe tliei^' origin to the Indians, 

 who procured the first seeds from traders." 



One of the earliest glimpses of plant-growing in the 

 New World is an account in the Philosophical Trans- 

 actions of the Rr.yal Society, early in the eighteenth 

 century, by Chief Justice Paul Dudley, of Roxbury, neor 

 Boston. In the Abridgement of the Transactions are the 



