SCHOPF AMERICAN TRAVELS. 



not then attack them. The statement is made that even boiHng-hot 

 water does not greatly injure the sprouting faculty of these seeds, 

 most of them coming up afterwards. Four pounds of raw seed give 

 about one pound of wool. The wool, with the seed in, was formerly 

 sold here and in North Carolina at 4-6-8 pence the pound. 



Cushaws, a sort of gourds, are raised in Virginia in greater quantity 

 and more generally than farther to the north ; they have them black, yel- 

 low, and white, and use them for pot herbs. Perhaps in no other coun- 

 try are all kinds of gourds and melons so much used as in America ; 

 in the summer and autumn one can not see without amazement the 

 great quantities of water and other melons brought to market at New 

 York and Philadelphia, as well as eaten in the country or let lie in the 

 fields. The plant recommends itself because, under the warm sun it 

 does well without much attention or care. For whatever needs more 

 than a little work without producing a great profit is not to the Ameri- 

 can taste. And so the pleasure of a fine garden is as yet scarcely 

 known in Virginia. Perhaps a few of the most considerable families 

 have made attempts, but commonly the people are satisfied with plant- 

 ing cabbage and turnips in an enclosed space, which goes by the name 

 of a garden, and sticking among them a few uncomely flowers. The 

 Virginians are so much the more at fault for neglecting a matter which 

 might add to the enjoyment of a residence in the country and embellish 

 their places, because their mild winters and warm summers must cer- 

 tainly give them many advantages. In the spring they have pease, 

 beans, and other vegetables by the end of April, or at least early in 

 May, 6 weeks or two months earlier than in New York. With the 

 passage of time they will indeed learn to make a better use of the ad- 

 vantages of their country than is the case among them at present. Big- 

 nonias appear here as large, strong trees. The Melia Azedarach 

 (Bead-tree) is frequently planted before the doors of houses, and this 

 originally East Indian tree stands the winters right well. In sundry 

 gardens there are tea-shrubs*, which succeed very well, and multiply 

 easily. Besides, the Hibiscus Syriacus, the Babylonian willow, the 

 box-tree, the myrtle, and one or two other plants, I was able at this 

 season of the year to recognize by way of foreign growths which it had 

 been attempted to domesticate. And nevertheless in the Virginia climate 

 many useful and pleasant plants might be made to do extremely well ; 

 the domestic chestnut, the round-leaved ash, the European wallnut tree, 

 the laurel-cherry tree, the pomegranate, the bay tree, and many others, 

 would find a congenial home here. 



Of indigenous plants not one was to be seen in bloom; evergreens 



* Later information gives assurance that in several parts of the United States the culture 

 of the tea-shrub has been gone tibout assiduously and with good hopes of success; chiefly for 

 the following reasons: China, like the American states, has a surface extended to the west and 

 northwest; and lies toward the Southern Ocean precisely as the United States towards the 

 Atlantic; these two countries are in the same latitude, and in both (and nowhere else) is the 

 ginseng indigenous, and this last circumstance especially argues so great a similarity of soil 

 and climate as to permit the hope that the tea-shrub will very likely thrive under American 

 skies, at least the experiment should be a tempting one. And it should not be forgotten that 

 sugar-cane, the basis of the whole West India trade, was originally also a stranger from 

 the East. 



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