The following articles and correspondence was prepared many years ago, by the author of this work, for the Warsaw Horticultural Society, and are here copied from the Journals of that efficient and commendable organization. Little thought had the writer at that time that the communications then prepared would be used at this date, for the Centennial History of Mason County. We extract from the proceedings of that Society:
"The Secretary also read a letter from J. Cochrane, Secretary of the Mason County, Ill., Horticultural Society, as follows:"
Havana, Ill., March 22, 1867
N. W. Bliss, Esq.
Dear Sir-Your esteemed favor of the 17th inst., was duly received. Please to accept my thanks for the accompanying article from your pen; also, for papers received a short time since. I will comply with your request in regard to the history of the Gardner Orchard, at an early date. I herewith send you a condensed statement, furnished me, of the Fisk orchard, one of the oldest, if not the oldest, in this county.
"In the fall of 1837, we planted a lot of apple seeds, plum and peach pits in a small space of ground dug up for that purpose. In the spring following, many of them came up, and, with diligent culture, grew finely. In two years they were ready for transplanting.
"They were set out in a valley, and on the side of a ridge facing the north. The ridge was covered with bushes, interspersed with large timber. The flat is of our richest black sandy loam, at the depth of three or four feet underlaid with a stiff clay subsoil. The ridge has but little soil upon it, towards the south part of the orchard. Soil, light sand, subsoil yellow sand, yet blue-grass will grow upon it. A few years later we purchased about a dozen of trees from near Decatur, of the large Romanite variety.
"Now, as to the results. Some winters the water would rise in the flats, but to obviate this, we hilled up the place for the trees, and by after cultivation the mounds were increased. The first trees were set out in the spring of 1840, and in 1846 a number of them bore fruit, but the hard winter of '45 and '46 killed the Decatur trees to the ground and some of them never sprouted. The seedlings remained, some of them I have grafted, and some bear apples I am loth to part with, and do not care to graft. Two of them bear a small striped red and green apple that will keep until August. Two of them bear early apples; one is a striped apple, sheep-nose in shape, medium-sub-acid-juicy. The other, striped red and yellow-medium-sub-acid-juicy-flesh firm.
"Another bears a white apple, skin tender, flesh white, brittle and firm, sub-acid, September, medium. Another produces a yellow fruit, very juicy, intensely sour, and very rich, as are all the preceding. Still another grows a large green apple with red streaks. In size and color somewhat resembles the Rambo, ripens about the 15th of August, sub-acid, tender and delicate. Others bear good, common fruit, and from these trees I have a succession of fruit the year round, and every year.
"The peach trees bore in three years. They bore well for several years, and at the winter aforenamed, they went the way of all the earth. There are a few now on the place, but their fruiting is like angel's visits. The plum trees were suffered to remain without transplanting. I have quite a thicket of them; they bear every year; are not equal to some other varieties, yet some persons consider them worth stealing."
I am now getting another orchard of grafted fruit. Some of the trees, gotten five years ago of Prof. Turner, of Jacksonville, fruited this and last year. Also, quite a lot of Chickasaw, Blue and Lombard plums; all except the latter have been bearing. I am not troubled with curculio so as to suffer any inconvenience. My remedy is to DO NOTHING, hence not expensive.
Our county Horticultural Society is in its tottering infancy; we hope to see it able, at least, to be standing alone during the present summer.
I am urging the matter of our folks taking horticultural journals, and will do "what in me lies" for the State Society. Anything you can put in our way, in the future, as in the past, will be duly appreciated.
Truly yours,
J. COCHRANE.
The Secretary remarked that the history of the Fisk orchard should encourage all to experiment in raising seedlings, and thus increase the varieties of fruits, and at the same time secure hardiness and productiveness.
Extract from the proceedings of a meeting held by the Warsaw Horticultural Society, at Warsaw, Illinois, June 27, 1867:
"President A. C. Hammond called the meeting to order. Minutes of the last meeting read and approved.
The Secretary said he would read to the Society a history of the "Gardner Orchard," furnished by Joseph Cochrane, Esq., Secretary of the Mason county, Illinois, Horticultural Society, as follows:
HAVANA, ILL., May 16, 1867.
N. W. Bliss, Esq.:
Dear Sir-According to promise, I proceed to give you a brief history of the "Gardner Orchard," in Fulton county, near this city. The "improvement" was begun by the father of the present owner of the Gardner estate, many years ago, before the time had come (in this vicinity) that
The furrows were deep that the plowman had made,
And the engines of war were the harrow and spade;
That the Soldiers of Labor had homes on their lands,
With their great stalwart chest, and their big bony hands;
Where the Farmer sat down in the stillness of even,
And their children sang songs to "The Father" in Heaven.
A lot of apple seed was obtained from Griffith's orchard above the mouth of the Missouri River, near St. Charles, Mo., in the fall of 1824, and planted in a nursery the succeeding spring, where the young trees remained till three years old, when four hundred were selected and planted out in orchard. The ground selected for the orchard site was high prairie soil, rich sandy loam, with a clay subsoil, sheltered on the East and North by timber and bluffs.
The trees commenced bearing at various ages, from five years upward. The fruit generally was remarkable for keeping well and for long periods; the fruit from many of the trees keeping well till June, and even later. It was not generally of the largest size, but good in quality and variety. Among the trees of this orchard, which bear early fruit, is the Fulton strawberry, an apple which has become too well known to be described here, and as favorably as widely known. The old, original tree is still standing, full of this blossoms, to-day, and bids fair to produce an abundant crop, as for thirty years past it has rarely failed to do. The fruit of this orchard generally was of so good a quality that a nurseryman sought and obtained the privilege of cutting grafts of about forty varieties there from, for the purpose of propagation. What the longevity of these trees would have been under favorable circumstances cannot be stated, as the very disastrous hailstorm of May 28, 1840, destroyed nearly the entire orchard, or so injured the trees that they were cut down as cumberers of the ground, excepting a few, among which is the afore-mentioned Fulton Strawberry.
None of the trees of this orchard were ever affected by blight or other disease, but they were magnificent specimens of thriftiness and healthfulness.
Pear trees have not done well in this locality, having invariable died of blight.
Peaches have succeeded, especially a black seedling brought from Kentucky. The Red or Indian Peach has also done well here.
Early settlers in Mason and McDonough counties came and selected trees from those remaining in the original Gardner apple tree nursery, thus raised from seed brought from St. Charles, Mo., and did themselves and their posterity good service thereby, for the fullness of time had not yet come when philanthropic individuals should disinterestedly perambulate the country, recommending, with exaggerated pictures and studied eloquence, the "wonderful strawberries and marvelous grapes" they have to sell, at the low price of $3 per plant, to the "hard-fisted yeomanry" of the land.
If I were called upon to name the obstacle to the general planting and cultivation of fruit in this country, I should unhesitatingly say it is the Tree Peddler, who, being itinerant, does not hesitate to tell the most stupendous lies, in praise and recommendation of what he has to sell. Thus purchasers are imposed upon, and after much time and money is thus spent to no purpose, they become discouraged in their very laudable undertakings.
Very respectfully yours,
JOSEPH COCHRANE.
On motion, the thanks of the Society were tendered to Mr. Cochrane for his very interesting and instructive contribution to Apple History, in giving us this valuable account of the "Gardner Orchard."
Since the above account of the Gardner orchard was written, the old Gardner homestead has descended to Mr. James Gardner, the grandson of the original proprietor, who, with his accomplished wife, now occupies the old home.
In addition to the above, we find, in the early history of the county, there were apple trees planted by Mr. O. E. Foster, three miles northeast of Havana, about the year 1835 or 1836, and by another party, whose name we have been unable to learn, in the vicinity of Crane creek.
AGRICULTURE IN 1776
From an eastern publication we extract the following, which may interest the reader as to "then" and "now:"
In the course of a century, within their narrow fringe of country, the colonists had transformed the wilderness into a fertile and productive territory. Agriculture was their favorite pursuit. Travelers from Europe were struck with the skill with which they cultivated the rich and abundant soil, the fine farm houses that filled the landscape, the barns overflowing with harvests, the cattle, the sheep. The northern and middle colonies for wheat and corn were famous. Pennsylvania was the granary of the nation. In New Jersey the farms that spread from Trenton to Elizabethtown excited the admiration of the scientific Kalm. Long Island was the garden of America, and all along the valleys opening upon the opulence by a careful agriculture. The farm-house, usually built of stone, with tall roofs and narrow windows, were scenes of intelligent industry. While the young men labored in the fields, the mothers and daughters spun wool and flax, and prepared a large part of the clothing of the family. The farm-house was a manufactory for all the articles of daily use. Even nails were hammered out in winter, and the farmer was his own mechanic. A school and a church were provided for almost every village. Few children were left untaught by the Dutch dominie, who was sometimes paid in wampum; or the New England student, who lived among his patrons, and was not always fed upon the daintiest fare. On Sunday, labor ceased, the church-bell tolled in the distance, a happy calm settled upon the rural region, and the farmer and his family, in their neatest dress, rode or walked to the village church. The farming class, usually intelligent and rational, formed in the northern colonies the sure reliance of freedom, and when the invasion came, the Hessians were driven out of New Jersey by the general rising of its laboring farmers, and Burgoyne was captured by the resolution of the people rather than by the timid generalship of Gates.
The progress of agriculture of the South was even more rapid and remarkable than at the North. The wilderness was swiftly converted into a productive region. The coast from St. Mary's to the Delaware, with its inland country, became within a century the most valuable portion of the earth. Its products were eagerly sought for in all the capitals of Europe, and one noxious plant of Virginia had supplied mankind with a new vice and a new pleasure. It would be useless to relate again the story of the growth of the tobacco trade. Its cultivation in Virginia was an epoch in the history of man. Tobacco was to Virginia the life of trade and intercourse; prices were estimated in it; salaries of the clergy were fixed at so many pounds of tobacco. All other products of the soil were neglected in order to raise the savage plant. Ships from England came over annually to gather in the great crops of the large planters, and Washington, one of the most successful landowners and agriculturists, was accustomed to watch keenly over the vessels and their captains who sailed up the Potomac to his very dock. The English traders seem to have been often anxious to depreciate his cargoes and lower his prices. Virginia grew enormously rich from the sudden rise of an artificial taste. From 1824, when the production of tobacco was first made a royal monopoly, until the close of the colonial period, the production and consumption rose with equal rapidity, and in 1775, 85,000 hogsheads were exported annually, and the sale of tobacco brought in nearly $4,000,000 to the southern colonies. This was equal to about one third of the whole export of the colonies. Happily since that period the proportion has rapidly decreased, and more useful articles have formed the larger part of the export from the New World to the Old.
One of these was rice. A Governor of South Carolina, it is related, had been in Madagascar, and seen the plant cultivated in its hot swamps. He lived in Charleston, on the bay, and it struck him that a marshy spot in his garden might well serve for a plantation of rice. Just then-1964-a vessel put in from Madagascar, in distress, whose commander the Governor had formerly known. Her wants were liberally relieved. In gratitude for the kindness he received, the master gave the Governor a bag of rice. It was sown and produced abundantly. The soil proved singularly favorable for its culture. The marshes of Georgia and South Carolina were soon covered with rice plantations. A large part of the crop was exported to England. In 1724, 100,000 barrels were sent out from South Carolina alone. In 1761, the value of its rice crop was more than $1,500,000. Its white population could not have been more than 45,000, and it is easy to conceive the tide of wealth that was distributed annually among its small band of planters. They built costly mansions on the coasts and bays, lived in fatal luxury, were noted for their wild excesses, and often fell speedy victims to the fevers of the malarious soil. Indigo, sugar, molasses, tar, pitch, and a great variety of valuable productions added to the wealth of the south. But cotton, which has grown through many vicissitudes to be the chief staple of British and American trade, was, at this period, only cultivated in small quantities for the use of the farmers. It was spun into coarse cloths. But it was not until Whitney's invention, in 1793, that it could be readily prepared for commerce, and to the inventive genius of Connecticut, the Southern States owe the larger part of their wealth and political importance.
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