THE HORTICULTURIST AND LANDSCAPE GARDENER
Washington's work as a horticulturist prior to the educating influences of the Revolution was mostly utilitarian. That he had a peach orchard as early as 1760 is proven by an entry in his diary for February 22: "Laid in part, the Worm of a fence round the Peach orchard." Just where this orchard stood I am not quite certain, but it was probably on the slope near the old tomb.
He learned how to propagate and "wed" his own trees and in 1763 was particularly active. On March 21st he recorded that he had "Grafted 40 cherries, viz 12 Bullock Hearts, 18 very fine May Cherry, 10 Coronation. Also grafted 12 Magnum Bonum Plums. Also planted 4 Nuts of the Mediterranean Pame in the Pen where the Chestnut grows--sticks by East. Note, the Cherrys and Plums came from Collo. Masons Nuts from Mr. Gr[een's.] Set out 55 cuttings of the Madeira Grape."
A little later he grafted quinces on pear and apple stocks; also he grafted "Spanish pairs," "Butter pears," "Bergamy Pears," "Newtown Pippins," "43 of the Maryland Red Strick," etc., and transplanted thirty-five young crab scions. These scions he obtained by planting the pumice of wild crab apples from which cider had been made. They were supposed to make hardier stocks than those grown from ordinary seeds.
He grafted many cherries, plums, etc., in March, 1764, and yet again in the spring of 1765, when he put English mulberry scions on wild mulberry stocks. In that year "Peter Green came to me a Gardener." In 1768 and 1771 he planted grapes in the inclosure below the vegetable garden and in March, 1775, he again grafted cherries and also planted peach seeds and seeds of the "Mississippi nut" or pecan.
Long before this he had begun to gather fruits from his early trees and vines. Being untroubled by San Jose scale and many other pests that now make life miserable to the fruit grower, he grew fine products and no doubt enjoyed them.
His esthetic sense was not yet fully developed, but he was always desirous of having his possessions make a good appearance, and by 1768 was beginning to think of beautifying his grounds. In that year he expressed a wish that he later carried out, namely to have about his mansion house every possible specimen of native tree or shrub noted for beauty of form, leaf or flower.