CLIMATE AND HORTICULTURE OF NEW ENGLAND. 15 



pestilent weeds that are by nature hardy and cosmopolitan, and 

 that, taking advantage of the exchanges of agriculture, travel 

 about the globe, unbidden guests, with such vigorous aggression that 

 their extermination, in our methods of culture, seems impossible. 



Our fervent ninety da^'s of summer, though not enough for the 

 great majority of tropical plants, enable us to make gardens that in 

 edible richness surpass the prodigality of the tropical world ; albeit 

 the plants which we there produce, — that minister so much to 

 health, comfort, luxury, or actual necessity-, — have been intro- 

 duced to our use from the far South. 



The vegetable contributions of the New World to the Old were 

 from the regions of tropic warmth. The maize, or Indian corn, 

 though spread b}^ savage necessit}' to the extreme limit of culti- 

 vation at the time of the discovery of America, was a child of the 

 sun. Tobacco, the ubiquitous solace of life ; the potato, that has 

 enabled the world to sustain its population so easih' ; the tomato, 

 chocolate, quinine, and an infinite variety of tropical flowers, were 

 furnished from the boundless resources of the equatorial world. 

 Imagine a pharmacopceia without quinine, — a malaria-infected 

 world without its remedy, — people whose imembittered existence 

 should be shaken and racked with chills and fever, and no 

 antidote ! 



When our fathers landed upon the shores of Plymouth they 

 could form no idea of the flora of the region. Those who lived to 

 see the miracles of the New England spring were filled with glad 

 surprise at its sudden beauty. They gathered with delight, first, 

 the lovely arbutus ; later, the pale, single roses of the forest. 

 When the wild grapes blossomed, charming the vagrant breezes 

 with fragrance, and their broad leaves unfolded, they knew wh}' 

 the Norseman, skirting these shores in summer, had called it a 

 Land of Vines. Then they reddened their fingers with the wild 

 strawberries, and told thumping stories about them in letters 

 home, — travellers' tales, such as, that "ships might be loaded 

 with their abundance." 



It is necessar}' for man to plant seed and till the soil, even in 

 savage life. I take it that the New England Indians were no 

 mean farmers, and that their agriculture was quite extensive. 

 The Pilgrim watched the squaw preparing the ground cleared by 

 fire upon the banks of a stream ; her simple hoe, a clam shell 

 or shoulder blade of deer, tied with thong of hide or muscle to a 

 stick. Thej' worked their laud near the water, to be convenient 



