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 satisfy'd 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 Colour; 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 Blasts, as others are.
Of this sort we make Vinegar; wherefore we call them Vinegar-Peaches,
and sometimes Indian-Peaches.
{Apricock.}
This Tree grows to a vast Bigness, exceeding most Apple-Trees.
They bear well, tho' sometimes an early Spring comes on in February,
and perhaps, when the Tree is fully blown the Cloudy North-East-Winds
which attend the end of, that Month, or the beginning of March,
destroy most of the Fruit. The biggest Apricock-Tree I ever saw,
as they told me, was grafted on a Peach-Stock, in the Ground.
I know of no other sort with us, than the Common. We generally
raise this Fruit from the Stone, which never fails to bring the same Fruit.
Likewise our Peach-Stones effect the same, without so much as once missing,
to produce the same sort that the Stone came from.
{Plum.}
Damson, Damazeen, and a large round black Plum are all I have met withal
in Carolina. They thrive well enough; the last to Admiration,
and becomes a very large Tree, if in stiff Ground; otherwise they will not
do well.
{Figs.}
Of Figs we have two sorts; One is the low Bush-Fig, which bears a large Fruit.
If the Winter happens to have much Frost, the tops thereof die,
and in the Spring sprout again, and bear two or three good Crops.
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