"The Quinces, Cherries, Damsons, set the Dames a work, Marmalad and
preserved Damsons are to be met with in every house. It was not long
before I left the Countrey that I made Cherry wine, and so may others,
for there are good store of them both red and black. Their fruit trees
are subject to two diseases, the Meazels, which is when they are burned
and scorched with the Sun, and lowsiness, when the woodpeckers jab holes
in their bark: the way to cure them when they are lowsie is to bore a
hole in the main root with an Augur, and pour in a quantity of Brandie
or Rhum, and then stop it up with a pin made of the same Tree."
As early as 1641, a nursery had been started in Massachusetts and was
selling among other trees those of the cherry. Troublesome pests had
made their appearance, too, as may be seen from the following letter,
probably from the first American nurseryman. The letter is written by
George Fenwith of Saybrook, Connecticut, under date of May 6, 1641,[28]
to Governor John Winthrop, Jr.
"I haue receaued the trees yow sent me, for which I hartily thanke
yow. If I had any thing heare that could pleasure yow, yow should
frely command it. I am prettie well storred with chirrie & peach
trees, & did hope I had had a good nurserie of aples, of the aples
yow sent me last yeare, but the wormes have in a manner distroyed
them all as they came vp. I pray informe me if yow know any way to
preuent the like mischiefe for the future."
These early plantations of cherries in New England were undoubtedly
grown from seed; for buds, cions and trees could not have been imported
unless the latter were brought over potted out as was not commonly done
until a century and a half later--at least, the records make mention of
seeds and not of trees as was the case just before and after the
Revolutionary War. A statement left by one of the Chief Justices of
Massachusetts, Paul Dudley, living at Roxbury, at as late a date as
1726, indicates that varieties were few. In a paper in the
_Philosophical Transactions_[29] on agricultural conditions in
Massachusetts, among many other interesting things, Justice Dudley says:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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