THE MASSACHUSETTS COLONY. 5 



to bee found but in this countrey: Because also of varietie of 

 colours, as red, blew, and 3~ellow : and of one corne there springeth 

 four or five hundred. . . . Our governor hath store of green pease 

 growing in his garden, as good as ever I eat in England. The 

 countrie aboundeth naturally with store of rootes of great vari- 

 etie and good to eat. Our turnips, parsnips, and carrots are 

 here both bigger and sweeter than is ordinary to be found in 

 England. Here are store of pompions, cowcumbers, and other 

 things of that nature which I know not. . . . Excellent vines are 

 here, up and down in the woodes. Our governor hath already 

 planted a vineyard with great hope of encrease. Also mulberries, 

 plums, rasberries, corrance, chesnuts, filberds, walnuts, smalnuts, 

 hurtleberries, and hawes of whitethorne, neere as good as our 

 cherries in England ; they grow in plentie here." * 



Master Graves, in his letter appended to the above quoted 

 account of New England's Plantation, gives this glowing descrip- 

 tion of the luxuriance of vegetation in 1629 : 



" Thus much I can affirme in generall, that I never came to a 

 more goodly country in all my life, all things considered. If it 

 hath not at any time been manured and husbanded yet it is very 

 beautifull in open lands mixed with goodly woods, and again open 

 plains, in some places five hundred acres, some places more, some 

 lesse, not much troublesome for to cleere for the plough to goe in ; 

 no place barren but on the tops of the hills ; the grasse and weedes 

 grow up to a man's face ; in the lowlands and by fresh rivers 

 aboundance of grasse, and large meddowes without any tree or 

 shrubbe to hinder the sith. I never saw, except in Hungaria, unto 

 which I alwayes paralell this countrie, in all our most respects : for 

 everything that is heare eyther sowne or planted, prospereth far 

 better then in Old England. The increase of corne is here farre 

 be} 7 ond expectation, as I have scene here by experience in barly, 

 the which, because it is so much above your conception I will not 

 mention. . . . Vines doe grow here plentifully laden with the 

 biggest grapes that ever I saw : some I have scene foure inches 

 about. . . . Wee abound with such things which, next under God, 

 doe make us subsist : as fish, foule, deere ; and sundrie sorts of 

 fruits, as musk-millions, water-millions, Indian pompions, Indian 

 pease, beanes, and many other odde fruits that I cannot name." 2 



1 Mass. Historical Society's Collections, First Series, Vol. I. p. 118. 



2 Ibid., p. 124. 



