10 INTRODUCTION. 



seed, that is somewhat like a Maggot, of a white colour with a red 

 head, and is about the bignes of ones finger and an inch or an 

 inch and a half long ; " 1 undoubtedly the larva of the May beetle 

 (Lachnosterna fusca), so troublesome to modern cultivators. 

 " There is also a dark, dunnish Worm or Bug of the bigness of 

 an Oaten-straw, and an inch long, that in the spring lye at the 

 Root of Corn and Garden plants all day and in the night creep out 

 and devour them " (probably some species of Iladena, or cut- 

 worm) ; and he gives what he rightly calls a ' ' somewhat strange 

 wa t y to get rid of them, which the English have learnt of the 

 Indians." 2 From his remark that u I never heard or did see in 

 eight 3 T ears' time one worm eaten Pea," 8 it would appear that 

 the pea- weevil (Bruchus pisi), said by entomologists to be a 

 native of this country, was either not known in New England, 

 or had not learned to prefer the exotic pea, in which only it is 

 now found, to its original food, whatever that may have been. In 

 1661 John Hull related that " the canker worm hath for fower 

 years devoured most of the apples in Boston, that the apple 

 trees look in June as if it was the 9th month." The}' were 

 again very destructive in 1770. In 1665, 1686, and 1708, fasts 

 were held in Salem for deliverance from caterpillars, palmer 

 worms, and other destructive insects. 4 



The curculio was abundant as early as 1746 ; for John Bartram, 

 writing to Peter Collinson in that year, of the sloe, says, "the 

 blossoms are prodigious full, but never one ripe fruit. They are 

 bit with the insect as all our stone fruit is, but the Peaches and 

 some kinds of Cherries overgrow them." 5 



Josselyn in his Second Voyage described Boston as having 

 the south side adorned with fair orchards and gardens ; and similar 

 language was used in regard to Dorchester, Roxbury, Dedham, 

 Charlestown, Marblehead, and Ipswich. 6 He says 7 that the 

 Indians had kidney-beans (which they boiled), pompions, and 

 watermelons. He also makes frequent mention of them else- 

 where. Some of the beans, he says, were indigenous, and others 

 introduced. Champlain also, 1604-1610, speaks in many places 

 of their cultivating beans and squashes. Marquette, who in 1673 



i Second Voyage, p. 115. Darlington's Memorials of Bartram and Marshall, p. 175. 



* Ibid., p. 116. Second Voyage, pp. 160-168. 



N. E. Rarities, p. 88. ^ Ibid., pp. 129, 130. 



Felt's Annals of Salem, Vol. H. p. 127. 



