The cherries of New York

by U. P. Hedrick

CHERRIES IN NEW ENGLAND

The cherry came to New England with the first settlers. This we are told in all the records of early New England in which the conditions of the country are described and of it we have confirmatory proof in many enormous cherry trees, Sweet and Sour, both about ancient habitations and as escapes from cultivation in woods, fields and fence rows, all pointing to the early cultivation of this fruit. The early records are very specific. Thus, to quote a few out of an embarrassment of references: Francis Higginson writing in 1629, after naming the several other fruits then under cultivation in Massachusetts, notes that the Red Kentish is the only cherry cultivated.[25] In the same year, the 16th of March, 1629, a memorandum of the Massachusetts Company shows that "Stones of all sorts of fruites, as peaches, plums, filberts, cherries, pear, aple, quince kernells" were to be sent to New England.[26]

These seeds, provided by the home company with forethought of the need of orchards in the colony, evidently produced fruit trees sufficient to supply both hunger and thirst; for John Josselyn, who made voyages to New England in 1638, 1639 and 1663, writing of "New England's Rarities Discovered," says:[27] "Our fruit Trees prosper abundantly, Apple-trees, Pear-trees, Quince-trees, Cherry-trees, Plum-trees, Barberry-trees. I have observed with admiration, that the Kernels sown or the Succors planted produce as fair and good fruit, without grafting, as the tree from whence they were taken: the Countrey is replenished with fair and large Orchards. It was affirmed by one Mr. Woolcut (a magistrate in Connecticut Colony) at the Captains Messe (of which I was) aboard the Ship I came home in, that he made Five hundred Hogsheads of Syder out of his own Orchard in one year. Syder is very plentiful in the Countrey, ordinarily sold for ten shillings a Hogshead.

"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:

"Our apples are without doubt as good as those of England, and much fairer to look to, and so are the pears, but we have not got all the sorts. Our peaches do rather excel those of England, and then we have not the trouble or expence of walls for them; for our peach trees are all standards, and I have had in my own garden seven or eight hundred fine peaches of the Rare-ripes, growing at a time on one tree. 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 cyder. This was in the year 1721. And in another town of two hundred families, in the same year I am credibly informed they made near ten thousand barrels. Our peach trees are large and fruitful, and bear commonly in three years from the stone. Our common cherries are not so good as the Kentish cherries of England, and we have no Dukes or Heart cherries, unless in two or three gardens."