Evolution of Iborticulture 



also our acquaintance with the flora and 

 fauna of early New Bngland, are de- 

 rived from the chronicles of the Pil- 

 grims, and from those who visited the 

 parts in later years. Morton, who was at 

 Plymouth in 1622, says in his New Eng- 

 lish Canaan: "The salvages are accus- 

 tomed to set fire to the country in all 

 places where they come, and to burn it 

 twice a year, viz., at the spring, and the 

 fall of the leaf. The reason that moves 

 them to do so is because it would other- 

 wise be so overgrown with underweeds, 

 that it would be all a coppice wood, and 

 the people would not be able in any wise 

 to pass through the country out of a 

 beaten path. This custom of firing the 

 country is the means to make it passable, 

 and by that means the trees grow here 

 and there, as in our parks, and makes the 

 country very beautiful and commodius." 1 

 Fresh water was abundantly supplied by 

 rivers and springs. The soil, as a gen- 



1 Morton's New English Canaan, bk. i., chap, 

 xviii. 



50 



