10 



wilderness. " There be," says William Wood/ 

 " in divers places near the plantations, great, broad 

 meadows, wherein grow neither shrub nor tree, ly- 

 ing low : in w^hich plains, grows as much grass as 

 may be throAvn out with a scythe, thick and long". . . . 

 "It being," he continues, "the custom of the In- 

 dians, to burn the woods, in November, when the 

 grass is withered and leaves dried : it consumes 

 all the underwood and rubbish, which, otherwise, 

 would overgrow the country, making it unpassable, 

 and spoil their much affected hunting : so that, by 

 these means, in those places where the Indians in- 

 habit, there is scarce a bush or bramble, or any 

 cumbersome underwood to be seen in the more 

 champaign country." 



The indolence, if not the good taste, of the abor- 

 iginal lords of the forest, confided the charge of the 

 nurture of the vegetable luxuries of their sylvan 

 homes, to the dames and damsels of their birchen 

 household. There is testimony, that the maize, the 

 bean, and the pumpkin, grew every where under 

 their patronage, and the neatness of the cultivation 

 is attested by a faithful observer. " Another work," 

 writes Wood, " is, their planting of corn, wherein 

 they excel our English husbandmen, keeping it so 

 clean, with their clam shell hoes, as if it were a 

 garden rather than a corn field ; not suffering a 

 choking weed to advance his audacious head above 

 their infant corn, or an undermining worm to spoil 

 his spurs." 



The skill of those, whose white sisters, says an 



(l) New England Prospect, being a true, Iwely, and experimental description of 

 that pari of America, commonhj called New England. London, 1634, page 18. 



