The History of Louisiana, Or of the Western Parts of Virginia and Carolina / Containing a Description of the Countries That Lie on Both Sides of the River Missisippi

by Le Page du Pratz

The orange-trees and citron-trees that were brought from Cape François have succeeded extremely well; however I have seen so severe a winter that those kinds of trees were entirely frozen to the very trunk. In that case they cut the trees down to the ground, and the following summer they produced shoots that were better than the former. If these trees have succeeded in the flat and moist soil of New Orleans, what may we not expect when they are planted in better soil, and upon declivities of a good exposure? The oranges and citrons are as good as those of other countries; but the rind of the orange in particular is very thick, which makes it the better for a sweet-meat.

There is plenty of wild apples in Louisiana, like those in Europe; and the inhabitants have got many kind of fruit trees from France, such as apples, pears, plums, cherries, &c. which in the low grounds run more into wood than fruit; the few I had at the Natches proved that high ground is much more suited to them than the low.

The blue Whortle-berry is a shrub somewhat taller than our largest gooseberry bushes, which are left to grow as they please. Its berries are of the shape of a gooseberry, grow single, and are of a blue colour: they taste like a sweetish gooseberry, and when infused in brandy it makes a good dram. They attribute several virtues to it, which, as I never experienced, I cannot answer for. It loves a poor gravelly soil.

Louisiana produces no black mulberries: but from the sea to the Arkansas, which is an extent of navigation upon the river of two hundred leagues, we meet very frequently with three kinds of mulberries; one a bright red, another perfectly white, and a third white and sweetish. The first of these kinds is very common, but the two last are more rare. Of the red mulberries they make excellent vinegar, which keeps a long time, provided they take care in the making of it to keep it in the shade in a vessel well stopped, contrary to the practice in France. They make vinegar also of bramble berries, but this is not so good as the former. I do not doubt but the colonists at present apply themselves seriously to the cultivation of mulberries, to feed silk-worms, especially as the countries adjoining to France, and which supplied us with silk, have now made the exportation of it difficult.

The olive-trees in this colony are surprisingly beautiful. The trunk is sometimes a foot and a half diameter, and thirty feet high before it spreads out into branches. The Provençals settled in the colony affirm, that its olives would afford as good an oil as those of their country. Some of the olives that were prepared to be eat green, were as good as those of Provence. I have reason to think, that if they were planted on the coasts, the olives would have a finer relish.

They have great numbers and a variety of kinds of walnut-trees in this country. There is a very large kind, the wood of which is almost as black as ebony, but very porous. The fruit, with the outer shell, is of the size of a large hen's egg: the shell has no cleft, is very rough and so hard as to require a hammer to break it. Though the fruit be very relishing, yet it is covered with such a thick film, that few can bestow the pains of separating the one from the other. The natives make bread of it, by throwing the fruit into water, and rubbing it till the film and oil be separated from it. If those trees were engrafted with the French walnut, their fruit would probably be improved.

Other walnut-trees have a very white and flexible wood. Of this wood the natives make their crooked spades for hoeing their fields. The nut is smaller than ours, and the shell more tender; but the fruit is so bitter that none but perroquets can put up with it.

The Hicori bears a very small kind of nut, which at first sight one would take for filberts, as they have the same shape and colour, and their shell is as tender, but within they are formed like walnuts. They have such an excellent relish, that the French make fried cakes of them as good as those of almonds.

Louisiana produces but a few filberts, as the filbert requires a poor gravelly soil which is not to be met with in this province, except in the neighbourhood of the sea, especially near the river Mobile.