PROGRESS OF GARDENING. 7 



hoarse with swallowing those red Bullies (as I may call them) 

 being little better in taste. English ordering may bring them to be 

 an English cherrie, but yet they are as wilde as the Indians. The 

 Plummes of the Countrey be better for Plumbs than the Cherries 

 be for Cherries ; they be blacke and yellow, about the bignesse of a 

 Damson, of a reasonable good taste. The white thorne affords 

 hawes as big as an English Cherrie, which is esteemed above a 

 Cherrie for his goodnesse and pleasantnesse to the taste." x 



It appears, from the same writer, that, as at Plymouth, the ocean 

 afforded the fertilizers for the crops of the first settlers. "The 

 English," he says, " use to manure their land with fish, which they 

 doe, not because the land could not bring corne without it, but 

 because it brings more with it, the land being kept in hart the 

 longer." 2 At Salem, "very bad sandie ground had for seaven 

 yeares together brought forth exceeding good corne, by being 

 fished but every third yeare." 8 It seems to have been but a short 

 time before some kinds of fish became too scarce to be used as 

 manure ; for on the 22d of May, 1639, it was forbidden after the 

 20th of the next month to use any cod or bass fish for manuring. 

 Heads and offal might be used for corn. 4 Wood also gives the fol- 

 lowing account of the agriculture of the aborigines, from which it 

 would appear to be more careful than has generally been supposed : 

 " An other work 5 is their planting of corne, wherein they exceede 

 our English husband-men, keeping it so cleare with their Clamme 

 shell-hooes as if it were a garden rather than a corne-field ; not 

 suffering a choaking weede to advance his audacious head above 

 their infant corne or an undermining worm to spoil his spumes." 6 



From 'his notices of different settlements it would appear that 

 horticulture had made quite as much progress as could be expected 

 in so short a time. In Dorchester he found " very good arable 

 ground, and hay grounds, faire Corn-fields, and pleasant Gardens 

 with Kitchin-gardens." "The inhabitants" of Roxbury "have 

 faire houses, store of Cattle, impaled Corne-fields, and fruitfull 

 Gardens." Boston had "very good land, affording rich Corne- 

 fields, and fruitfull Gardens ; likewise, sweet and pleasant 

 Springs." Of Lynn he says, "There is more English tillage 

 than in New England and Virginia besides ; which proved as 

 well as could be expected, the corne being very good, especially 

 the Barley, Rye, and Gates." 



* Wood, pp. 15, 16. Wood, p. 37. 6 Of the Indian women. 



2 Ibid., p. 10. * Mass. Records, Vol. I. p. 258. Wood, p. 81. 



