45 8 AGRICULTURE. 



nies will be of great advantage to those colonies, and also to this 

 kingdom, it is proposed to give to that planter, in any of our said 

 colonies, who shall first produce, within seven years from the date 

 hereof, from his own plantation, five tuns of white or red wine, 

 made of grapes, the produce of these colonies only, and such as 

 in the opinion of competent judges, appointed by the society in 

 London, shall be deemed deserving the reward not less than 

 one tun thereof to be imported at London one hundred pounds." 

 This premium was continued to be advertised to 1765, the period 

 appointed for bringing in the claims, and then dropped. After 

 the year 1759, a nota bene was added to the advertisement, which 

 expressed " that the method of cultivating vines for wines, and 

 the manner of making wines in different countries, were to be 

 found in 'Miller's Dictionary,' edit. 1758." 



The " London Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Com- 

 merce, and Manufactures " also offered premiums for hemp, 

 opium, olives, pot and pearl ashes, barilla, logwood, scammony 

 (produced from the Convolvulus Scammonia), myrtle wax (pro- 

 duced from the candleberry myrtle), sarsaparilla root, and gum 

 from the persimmon tree. It was thought that this gum might 

 take the place of gum-arabic, and directions were given for 

 gathering, but it was ascertained that the cost would be three 

 shillings sterling a pound, and as gum-arabic could be bought at 

 London for less than one-sixth of that price, the premiums were 

 discontinued after having been offered for three years. 



The French Colonists. While the tide-water region of the 

 Atlantic coast was being colonized, from the Penobscot to the 

 Altamaha, by the British, by the Dutch, and by the Swedes, the 

 French ascended the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, crossed 

 to the head-waters of the Mississippi, and descended that river 

 to its mouth. They were explorers, not settlers, and when they 

 established posts it was for hunting, rather than agriculture. 

 Their leaders, stamped with martial virtues and martial faults, 

 ambitiously endeavored to grasp the entire Western Continent, 

 rather than to cultivate a portion of it, and the historian's account 

 of their adventures is a romance. Plumed helmets gleamed in 

 the shade of the forests which bordered the lakes and rivers of 

 what was then the far West, and priestly vestments were to be 

 seen around the fitful light of the camp-fires. Men of courtly 



