6i4 sturtevant's notes on edible plants 



In New England, com was mentioned in 1605 by Champlain,* who saw it in cultivation 

 by the Indians at the mouth of the Kennebec. At Cape Cod, a little later, he saw fields 

 of com and also fields lying fallow. He mentions the method used for storing to be n 

 pits dug in sand on the slopes of the hills, into which the large grass sacks of com are stored 

 and then buried. In 1620, Miles Standish,* exploring for the Pilgrims, found the fields 

 in stubble for it was November and finally under the heap of sand " newly done: we might 

 see how they paddled it with their hands," " a fine, great, new basket, full of very faire 

 com, of this year, with some six and thirty goodly ears of com, some yellow and some 

 red and others mixt with blue."' In 1629, Higginson * says, " There is not such greate 

 and plentiful eares of come, I suppose, any where else to be found but in this country: 

 because, also, of varietie of colours as red, blew, and yellow, etc. : and of one come 

 there springeth four or five hundred." Josselyn ' says, " Indian wheat, of which there 

 is three sorts, yellpw, red and blew. The blew is commonly ripe before the other, a 

 month." 



In August, 1636, when the English made their attack on the Indians at Block Island, 

 " two hundred acres of corn were under cultivation and the maize, already partly harvested, 

 was piled in heaps to be stored away for winter use."* The Indians have a tradition, 

 says Roger Williams,' that " the crow brought them at first an Indian Grain of Com 

 in one Eare, and an Indian, or French, Beane is another, from the great God Kautantouwits' 

 field in the Southwest, from whence they hold came all their corne and beanes." Indian 

 corn was found as a common food when Europeans first landed at New York in 1609, 

 extensive fields being cultivated and the grain preserved.* In 1653, when Le Moine ' 

 navigated Lake Ontario and landed among the Senecas, they gave him " bread made 

 from Indian corn, of a kind to be roasted at the fire." In 1687, in an invasion into the 

 country of the Senecas by Marquis de Nouville, the quantity of com destroyed was esti- 

 mated at 1,200,000 bushels. In 1696, the French army under Frontenac '" invaded the 

 country of the Onondagas and spent three days in destroying the growing crops in the 

 fields which extended a league and a half from the fort. 



In 1633, De Vries" obtained from the Indians on the Delaware River Indian com 

 and peas. In 1696, the Rev. John Campanius," in his Delaware and Swedish translation 

 of the Catechism, accommodates the Lord's Prayer to the circiunstances of the Indians: 

 thus, instead of " give us our daily bread," he has it, " a plentiful supply of venison and 



'Champlain Voy. 1604-10. Prince Soc. Ed. 2:64, 121. 1878. 

 'Young, A. Chron. Pilgr. 130, 132. 1841. 



Mourt Rel. Mass. Hist. Soc. Ser. i. 8:210. 1802. 



'Higginson, Rev. Francis. New Eng. Plant. 1629. Mass. Hist. Coll. 1:118. 1792. 

 'Josselyn, J. New Eng. Far. 8$. 1638-63. 



Harshberger, J. W. Maiu 131. 1893. 



'Williams, R. Key. 1643. Narragansett Club Ed. i : 144. 1866. 



Delafield Trans. N. Y. Agr. Soc. 10:386. 1850. 



Delafield Trans. N. Y. Agr. So(. 10:387. 185a 

 " Frontenac Z5t/7c. ffis/. N. F. 1:213. 1850. 



" Hazard, S. Annais Pa. ii, 32. 1850. ' 



"Hazard, S. Annals Pa. 101. 1850. 



