﻿134 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 59 



ever it is not (more accurately) called a partridge. Similarly Cartier 

 called this grain millet. 



So Strachey's 1 Virginia tells us : 



The natives here have a kind of wheat which they call poketawes, as the West 

 Indians call the same maize. The form of it is a man's tooth, somewhat thicker, 

 for the preparing of the ground for which they use this manner. He then 

 proceeds to describe girdling the forest trees, killing the roots with fire, grubbing 

 up the dead stumps next year, planting three or five grains of wheat and one or 

 three of beans in the ashes and decayed wood, the hills being four or five 

 feet apart, weeding with hoes, hilling and the final processes of pulling and 

 preparation, with a word also for green roasting ears. 



Champlain more briefly describes the same process in New England, 

 specifying some additional tools. 



So " corn " may be " wheat " ; but the real crux is in the word 

 " unsown," evidently meaning wild, spontaneous. Dr. Fiske thought 

 the Norsemen, seeing the small amount of work required, considered 

 it practically so ; but the above abstract of procedure ought to dispose 

 of this rather curious fancy, which wo^ild not have occurred to him if 

 he had raised corn on a wooded hillside experimentally in the Indian 

 way. Besides, though a wheat-field resembles a natural field or 

 patch of low-growing wild grain, a cornfield is obviously artificial. 

 Dr. Fiske says that it was naturally noticed by Thorfinn's people, 

 being one of the first objects to attract the attention of Champlain. 

 But Champlain's first observation is : " They till and cultivate 



the soil. I landed to observe their tillage We saw their 



Indian corn, which they raise in gardens," and again, " before reach- 

 ing their cabins we entered a field planted with Indian corn." When- 

 ever he mentions this plant or its grain, it is unequivocally "as an 

 attendant on human homes and the product of human labor. 



No doubt the Norsemen would have done likewise, if " Indian 

 corn " were the " wheat " which they found ; but there is not a word 

 in the sagas to indicate any sign or product of agriculture past or 

 present — even of the " pulse " which Verrazano found the Narragan- 

 sett natives cultivating, whatever he may have meant. 



This interesting omission of the saga would have a negative value 

 in determining the general location of Hop, if we knew that corn 

 was then raised in any particular region which Thorfinn might have 

 reached. But the chances are that it had not yet entered New England 

 from beyond the Hudson. It was there in the early seventeenth 



1 W. Strachey : The Historie of Travaile into Virginia, p. 116. Cf. Lescarbot : 

 Nova Francia. Erondelle's transl., p. 98. "A loaf of bread made with the wheat 

 called mahiz or mais and in these our parts Turkey or Saracen wheat." 



