Zee 
candleberry (Af yriea carolinensis), which produced wax-covered 
berries used for making candles. This wax, constituting about ten 
n 
mee 
percent of the weight of the berry, was separated by boiling 
water. “ Throughout the Island the bayberry or candleberry was 
of recognized value. The town laws of Brookhaven, in 1687, for- 
bade the gathering of the berries before September 15th, under 
penalty of a fine of fifteen shillings.” (I lint, p. 27.) Sassafras 
was one of the most sought-for substances in the early days, but 
the abundance of the product and its little value as medicine quickly 
reduced the demand. Jacob Bigelow, in his Medical Botany, 1819 
(p. 142) comments as follows: “it seems to have been one of the 
earliest trees of the North American continent to attract the at- 
_— 
tention of Europeans. Its character as an article of medicine was 
at one time so high, that it commanded an extravagant price, and 
treatises were written to celebrate its virtues. The flavor of the 
root is most powerful, that of the branches more pleasant. The 
flavor and odour reside in a volatile oil which is readily obtained 
from the bark by distillation.” .\ third product of similar interest 
was the oil of checkerberry or wintergreen, derived from a dwart 
plant (Gawtheria procumbens) abundant throughout the pine 
barrens of Long Island, and still extensively used for flavoring and 
in medicine. 
The plants of Long Island provided but little for the manutac- 
ture of clothing, the species of most value in this respect being per- 
haps the milkweed (lsclepias syriaca) of which Bigelow (p. 88) 
says: “ Its chief uses were for beds, cloth, hats and paper. It was 
found that from eight to nine pounds of the silk occupred a space 
of from five to six cubic feet, and were sufficient for a bed, cover- 
1¢ fibre prevented it from 
— 
let, and two pillows.—The shortness of t 
being spun and woven alone. . ... A plantation containing thirty 
thousand plants yielded from six hundred to eight hundred pounds 
of sills.” 
But the food plants of a region are, after all, of the greatest 
interest, and of the native fruits the colonists seem to have been 
most impressed by the strawberries and whortleberries. Accord- 
ing to early reports the wild strawberry was both larger and more 
abundant than at the present time, and brought forth the following 
comment from Roger Williams [Bailey, Sketch of the Evolution oj 
