trees instead of against walls as in England. The Menifie plantation was famous in the Colony for the quantity and variety of its fruits, herbs, and vegetables, the garden containing rosemary, sage, marjoram, and thyme, the apple, the pear, and the cherry, while the house itself was surrounded by peach trees.[1]
A large orchard was owned by Mr. Hough of Nansemond; Richard Bennett had also planted many apple trees, and from the fruit annually expressed about twenty butts of cider, while Richard Kinsman obtained from his pears every year from forty to fifty butts of perry. It was the habit of some persons at this time to graft upon the indigenous crabstocks.
There are many indications that during the course of Governor Berkeley’s first administration, which began in 1641, and lasted until the surrender of the Colony to the commissioners of the Commonwealth in 1651, there was a very great increase in the number of neat cattle in Virginia. In 1640, it was provided that only the seventh head should be exported.[2] At the same time, few steps seem to have been taken to furnish the live stock with food in winter, when they were always likely to need it.[3] Neat cattle, however, were thought to be so v
- ↑ Devries’ Voyages from Holland to America, p. 50. The first peach trees referred to in the history of Virginia were at Kecoughtan. See Works of Capt. John Smith, p. 887. This was in 1629. The date of Devries’ reference to the peach trees at Menefie’s was 1633.
- ↑ Hening’s Statutes, vol. I, p. 227.
- ↑ This, however, was not unusual, as time following from the Records of York County, vol. 1638-1648, p. 278, Va. State Library, will show: “These presents Witnesseth that I, William Thornton, do bind Myself to look after the Cattle for the use of John Liptrott until such time that he doth come to age and carefully provide fodder for them as I do for my own.”
