Thus, Bartram says, speaking of the Cherokee town of Sticoe, on or near the Savannah River:[97] "On these towering hills appeared the ruins of the ancient famous town of Sticoe. Here was a vast Indian mount or tumulus and great terrace, on which stood the council-house, with banks encompassing their circus; here were also old Peach and Plumb orchards; some of the trees appeared yet thriving and fruitful." And again, discussing the ruins of a French town near Mobile, Alabama, he says:[98] "I ascended the bank of the river, and penetrating the groves, came presently to old fields, where I observed ruins of ancient habitations, there being abundance of Peach and Fig trees, loaded with fruit, which affording a very acceptable dessert after the heats and toil of the day, and evening drawing on apace, I concluded to take up my quarters here for the night." And still again, he found on Pearl Island:[99] "Besides the native forest trees and shrubs already noted, manured fruit trees arrive in this island to the utmost degree of perfection, as Pears, Peaches, Figs, Grape Vines, Plumbs, &c." Bartram in his travels found the peach so widely and abundantly naturalized that he was inclined to believe America to be its habitat. At least Kalm,[100] the Swedish naturalist, who visited Bartram in 1748-1749 reports that Bartram "looked upon peaches as an original American fruit, and as growing wild in the greater part of America." In 1758 Le Page Du Pratz, who lived on a plantation in Louisiana for several years and wrote a history of the French colony, says that the natives had peaches and figs when the French settled in Louisiana in 1698. He probably errs, however, in stating that the natives got their trees from the English colony of Carolina since the English did not settle in Carolina until 1670. No doubt the Indians had long before had peaches and figs from the Spaniards of Florida or Mexico. The account which this historian gives of early peach-culture in Louisiana is worth printing in full:[101] "The natives had doubtless got the peach trees and fig trees from the English colony of Carolina, before the French established themselves in Louisiana. The peaches are of the kind which we call alberges; are of the size of the fist, adhere to the stone, and contain so much water that they make a kind of wine of it. The figs are either blue or white; are large and well enough tasted. Our colonists plant the peach stones about the end of February, and suffer the trees to grow exposed to all weathers. In the third year they will gather from one tree at least two hundred peaches, and double that number for six or seven years more, when the tree dies irrecoverably. As new trees are so easily produced, the loss of the old ones is not in the least regretted."