152 IN SPRING. 



tivating this plant and multiplying its sites of 

 growth have been unsuccessfully made in the 

 neighborhood." 



It is curious that Kalm, who gave so much 

 attention to the food plants of our Indians, 

 should not mention the lotus. It certainly could 

 not have been at the time of his visit here (1748) 

 a common plant, yet the lower Delaware, where 

 a half-century later it was still found, was a lo- 

 cality about which he botanized with much in- 

 dustry. It is hard to believe that, had he once 

 caught sight of its enormous leaves, often thirty 

 inches in diameter, or seen the bright yellow 

 blossoms on their towering stems, he would have 

 omitted to make mention of such an experience. 

 Kalm spent a considerable part of his time 

 among his countrymen at Raccoon, now Swedes- 

 borough ; and at Woodstown, but a few miles 

 away, the native lotus grows luxuriantly, a relic, 

 it is believed, of Indian water-farming. 



There is no improbability in the opinion that 

 the Indians cultivated the plant. They were 

 certainly practical horticulturists as well as 

 growers of field crops. It was of an Indian 

 orchard that the pioneer settler of a New Jersey 

 town wrote when he stated, in 1680, that peaches 

 were " in such plenty that some people took 

 their carts a peach-gathering. I could not but 

 smile at the conceit of it. They are a very deli- 



