When I was a young man I was at school at Albany, in the State of New York. I there learned of the existence of an "Indian orchard," about twenty-five miles or so from the city - somewhere back of the little town on the Hudson now called Baltimore, I believe. I visited the spot to see the curiosity. The trees were scattered about promiscuously in a small creek flat or bottom. They bore the appearance of great age - had a few scattering samples of rather common fruit. They reminded me of pictures which I have seen of "old olive trees near Jerusalem." In 1874 I again saw those old apple trees. They then looked to me exactly like the old live oaks so common in Southern Texas, where I have lived for the last thirty-five years. In fact, quite all of the new-comers from New York mistake our live oaks for apple trees.

Now, about the age of those apple trees. The oldest men of that region said that the trees then (1848) looked to them just as they did when they (the men) were boys. The traditions of the region say that these trees were there when the white men settled there. The region is one where the population has changed but little, being largely occupied by descendants of the original settlers - so that the tradition concerning their antiquity is likely to be correct. I first saw them in 1848. In 1874 they still had, to me, about the same appearance that of twenty-six years before; and I presume that if some Vandal has not destroyed them, they yet may have about the same appearance. I have not the historical data by me, but must not these trees be nearly three hundred years old ? Mission Valley, Texas, March, 1885.

[It is understood that the apple trees of these Indians came from seeds given them by the French Jesuits, Juneau and others. It would be very interesting to know further about them. Probably Mr. Francis Parkman, or Mr. Conover, of Geneva, who have made these subjects special studies, could add something of interest to the little as yet known. - Ed. G. M].