Note 264 — Chapter V · LEADING VARIETIES OF PEACHES (continued 3)

Fruit Trees, published in 1817 by William Coxe, is the first American pomology. Though written by an amateur, during most of his life a merchant, his work was done with so much care and exhibits such nice discrimination in selecting, describing and discussing varieties of fruits that until the later and more complete work of Andrew Jackson Downing and Charles Downing, Coxe's Fruit Trees, competing with several other manuals, was the standard pomological work of America. William Coxe was born in Philadelphia, May 3, 1762, and died near Burlington, New Jersey, February 25, 1831. He seems to have inherited wealth and with it scholarly habits and such refinement and charm of personality that in Philadelphia and later in Burlington, to which place he removed in early manhood, he was one of the leaders in literary, scientific and social circles. His tastes early led him to the cultivation of fruit and he began to grow the varieties then to be had in America and to import sorts from England and France so that by 1817 he was able to say that he had been "for many years actively engaged in the rearing, planting and cultivating fruit trees on a scale more extensive than has been attempted by any other individual in this country." Previous to this for some years, how long cannot be said, he was the moneyed partner with one Daniel Smith in what, for the times, was an extensive fruit-tree and ornamental nursery. Demands for information became so frequent that he determined to put his knowledge in print and his Fruit Trees was the result. The objects he sought to obtain in writing are well set forth in the title page as follows: "A VIEW of the CULTIVATION of FRUIT TREES, and the Management of Orchards and Cider; with Accurate Descriptions of the Most Estimable Varieties of NATIVE AND FOREIGN APPLES, PEARS, PEACHES, PLUMS, AND CHERRIES, Cultivated in the Middle States of America; Illustrated by Cuts of two hundred kinds of Fruits of the natural size; Intended to Explain Some of the errors which exist relative to the origin, popular names, and character of many of our fruits; to identify them by accurate descriptions of their properties, and correct delineations of the full size and natural formation of each variety; and to exhibit a system of practice adapted to our climate, in the Successive Stages of A NURSERY, ORCHARD, AND CIDER ESTABLISHMENT." He was at one time a member of the State Legislature and later a Congressman intimately associated with Daniel Webster. He was, also, an honorary member of the Horticultural Society of London to which during many years he was a faithful correspondent. It was Coxe's privilege to see the very beginnings of commercial peach-growing in America and through his nursery, his orchard and his book he contributed much to American peach-culture.