retains its original Indian name, was found in great numbers in the thin soil on the barren ridges, in which it grew to the height of an ordinary apple tree. The fruit of this bush represented a variety of nut unknown to the early English explorers. There was an extraordinary abundance of hazel nuts in the swamps and bogs; and on the highlands, especially in the direction of the heads of rivers, the small hazel trees covered acres of ground in single patches.[1]
The only variety of apple tree indigenous to Virginia was the crab; large numbers of this tree were found, displaying the same affluence of blossom as the English crab apple, but bearing a fruit that was much less sour.[2] Three varieties of cherry were represented among the fruits of aboriginal Virginia, two of which grew upon a tree as great in size as the English white oak. The skins of both were black. The third was known among the later colonists as the Indian cherry, and was the product of a tree hardly exceeded by the English peach tree in girth and height, and showing an inclination for the soil of the valleys of the rivers, and of the narrow bottoms of the smaller streams. This variety was considered to be of extraordinary excellence in flavor; when ripe it was colored a dark purple, and there was only a single cherry to the stalk.[3] There were two varieties of plums, resembling, both in size and taste, the English damson. Cultivating and pruning were subsequently to improve both varieties very materially. A fruit tree that aroused unusual interest in the first adventurers was the persim-
- ↑ These last details are taken from Beverley's History, written nearly a century after the first exploration of Virginia, but giving as faithful an account of certain products of the soil which were characteristic of its primæval condition as if it had been composed an hundred years earlier. See pp. 104, 105.
- ↑ Ralph Hamor's True Discourse, p. 23.
- ↑ Beverley's History of Virginia, p. 102.
