A Botanical and Economic Study. 131 



Indian corne, and sowed sonic six acres of barley and pease." 

 . . "Our come did prove well, and, God be praised, 

 we had a good increase of Indian corne and our barley indif- 

 ferent good." 1 Before the Indians learned from the English 

 the use of a more convenient instrument, they tilled their 

 ground with hoes made of clam shells, for which purpose 

 they were well adapted.' In Edward Johnson's "Wonder 

 Working Providence of Sion's Saviour in New Kngland, 

 being a Relation of the First Planting of New England, 1628, 

 London, 1854," he says : " Many thousands of these [herrings] 

 they used to put under their corn, which they planted in hills 

 five feet asunder, and assuredly when the Lord created their 

 corn He had a special eye to supply these his people's wants 

 with it, for ordinarily five or six grains doth produce six 

 hundred." Winthrop, in 1630, obtained 100 pounds of corn 

 from the sea side of Cape Cod. 



The Connecticut colonies, founded at a later date than the 

 one at Plymouth, soon came into unfriendly contact with the 

 Indians, and in 1637 the Pequot war broke out. In the 

 history of .the Pequot war, it is recorded "that the Pequots 

 had two plantations three miles asunder, and above 200 acres 

 of corn, which the English destroyed." 3 Roger Williams 

 states that in the war between the Narraghansetts and the 

 combined forces of the Mohegans and Pequots, the latter 

 committed extensive robberies and destroyed twenty-three 

 fields of corn. The Puritans in King Philip's War, in 1675, 

 took "what he had worth, spoiled the rest, and also took 

 possession of one thousand acres of corn, which was har- 

 vested by the English and disposed according to their direc- 

 tion." 4 Everywhere the Puritans found maize.'' 



The Dutch Last India Company sent out Hendric Hudson 

 on a voyage of exploration. Hudson, when anchored off the 



1 Mourfs Relations. London, 1622. 



= Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., vn, 193 : Holmes, Bureau of Ethnology, u Rep.. 207 ; Wood, 

 New England Prospects, 106. 



Mourt's Relations, Drake, 116; Trans. Wise. Academy of Sciences, vi. S7- 

 * Drake, Old Indian Chronicle. 209 

 Morton, New England Memorials. 1826,68; Gooken. Mass. Hist. Coll.. Chap, in: 

 Bradford. History Plymouth Plantation, 82, ioo; Mourt's Relations. Wood, New Eng- 

 land Prospects: Williams. Roger. Key. 



