The text for the only other account we have space to publish for the
period under consideration is found in Washington's diary for February
22, 1760. "Laid in part, the Worm of a fence around the Peach orchard."
The information in Washington's short statement is inconsequential but
from it we form a pleasant picture of peach-growing at Mount Vernon.
Washington owned a distillery and in another place we learn that "the
distiller made every fall a good deal of apple, peach and persimmon
brandy." To supply the needs of the plantation in fruit and brandy,
there must have been a considerable number of trees, all seedlings, but
set in straight rows, for Washington, the surveyor, would have no botch
work in aligning and spacing. The fence, the worm of which Washington
was laying on his twenty-eighth birthday, if typical of the times, was
of split walnut-rails, laid zigzag. Eventually it became trellised
with wild grapes, Virginia creepers, honeysuckles and morning-glories.
The corners grew up to sassafras, brambles and other plants of the
region. In spring, we picture then, the pink-petalled trees, in the
peach-orchard at Mount Vernon, making obeisance to the Father of his
Country as he rode the rounds of the plantation; in summer the shady
shrub-grown corners of the worm-fence, sweet-scented with honeysuckle
or aromatic with sassafras, furnished refreshing resting places as
Washington watched his harvest; later, the orchard, voluptuous with
fruit, gave gustatory promises of products to eat and drink and
dazzled the eye with autumn colors of Virginia creeper, wild grape and
sassafras. The peach-orchard not only served the appetite at Mount
Vernon but was one of the most picturesque spots on the plantation.
Let the foregoing accounts of Smith, Bruce and Beverly suffice to give
status to early peach-growing in Virginia. They apply equally well to
Maryland, these neighboring colonies, it will be remembered, being
called by one of our authors, "Leah and Rachel or the Two Fruitful
Sisters." Of the peach in the states to the south at least a few words
ought to be said.
In the discussion of Indian peaches we have had a good account of the
early history of the peach in the Carolinas by Lawson. We now show the
status of peach-growing in this region at a later period. In an account
of South Carolina and Georgia, said to have been written by General
Oglethorpe, printed in London in 1733, we find the following:[116]
"Mulberries, both black and white, are natives of this soil, and are
found in the woods, as are many other sorts of fruit trees of excellent
kinds, and the growth of them is surprisingly swift; for a peach,
apricot, or nectarine tree will, from the stone, grow to be a bearing
tree in four or five years' time."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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