14 CONFERENCE OF GOVERNORS. 



early as 1741 apples were shipped from Boston to the West Indies, 

 and soon after this the first commercial shipment of American apples 

 is to be accorded to either New York or Philadelphia in 1758. 

 While this was an enterprise having its base of operations just 

 outside of New England, yet the prime mover was no less a person 

 than the famous New Englander of Boston, Benjamin Franklin. 



In April, 1633,^ Conants Island in Boston harbor was granted 

 to Governor Winthrop for 40 shillings and a yearly rent of 12 

 pence, he promising to plant a vineyard and an orchard, of which 

 the fifth part of the fruits were to be paid yearly by the Governor 

 for the time of his tenure. In 1634-35 the General Court changed 

 the rent to " a hogshead of the best wyne that shall grow there, to 

 be paide yearly after the death of the said John Winthrop and 

 noething before." The grape culture, if ever seriously undertaken, 

 undoubtedly proved a failure, for in 1640 the rent was again 

 changed to two bushels of apples every year, one bushel to the 

 Governor and another to the General Court in winter time, — the 

 same to be of the best apples there growing; accordingly we find 

 in the records of the General Court held at Boston the seventh 

 day of the eighth month, 1640, formal mention that " Mr. Win- 

 throp, Sr., paid in his b^ishel of apples." 



In the year 1721^ Paul Dudley, chief justice of Massachusetts, 

 residing at Eoxbury, says : — 



Our people of late years have run so much upon orchards that in a 

 village near Boston, consisting of about forty families, they made near 

 three thousand barrels of eider, and in another town of two hundred 

 families, in the same year, I am credibly informed that they made near 

 ten thousand barrels. Some of our apple trees will make six and even 

 seven barrels of cider. A good apple tree will measure from six to ten 

 feet in girt. 



Our peach trees are large and fruitful, and bear commonly in three 

 years from the stone. I have one in my garden of twelve years' growth 

 that measures two feet and an inch in girt a yard from the ground, 

 which two years ago bore me near a bushel of fine peaches. 



The Eenascence op the Apple. 

 Present-day orcharding should develop two lines of effort in 

 New England: (1) the planting of new orchards; (2) renovation 

 of old orchards. An entire change of front in regard to orchard- 

 ing methods should take place in New England. In the early days 

 the settlers followed the valleys, and planted orchards around their 



' History of Massachusetts Horticultural Society, p. 13. 

 " Ibid., p. 16. 



