<joslake@sbcglobal.net> wrote: >Several years ago I was in Fauquier Co & (new) Rappahannock Co Va on a research trip. >I stopped along the road and spoke with an orchardist (apples) and we got around to >land.   ___________ Not much alpine farming on Delmarva, but places like Germany's Rhine Valley with endless vineyards running up the slopes of the hills to the crest are spectacular. Some of these have been in use since the second century A.D., when the Romans planted their vines there, I'm told. Joe’s note serves to remind me of another aspect of land use widely encountered in the provincial records: orchards. These are usually seen in two contexts: (a) in resurveys, when the surveyor was required to note improvements to the property for taxation purposes while submitting his survey report, and (b) among the deeds (county land records), when the Commissioners doing assessment of orphans’ properties submitted their findings on the holdings and status of the real estate and the overseer’s management thereof. Along with rundowns of buildings (types, construction materials [like log, frame, brick], dimensions and state of repair) one typically sees amount of cultivated land and the size and condition of orchards. These lists mention the numbers of each type of fruit trees: e.g., apple (the most common), peach, pear, cherry, plum, and quince. There are many, many hundreds of such records, often including dozens or hundreds of fruit trees. My maps present an overall picture of orchards everywhere. They were a keenly important aspect of colonial farms, from the production of food for the table to marketable products, including cider. * Another fascinating reality that comes out of a collective look at the survey records is the forest composition. I may have in my database 20,000 trees used as “witness trees”, the survey bounders. These include mostly hardwood, giving a sense of the range and local density of each species. White oaks and red oaks dominate, but Spanish oak, live oak, hickory, pine, cypress, beech, gum, walnut, chestnut, mulberry, sassafras, cedar and other species are recorded. Those who know the present forest composition see how the ranges of these trees have changed across the centuries. * Ditto for mentions of marsh and swamp, blacksmith shops, saw mills, grist mills, brick kilns, landings, shipyards, etc., etc. All this sort of thing vividly illuminates the ancients’ world as they saw it. John