GILMoRE] TAXONOMIC LIST OF PLANTS 125 
themselves to the cultivation of the soil, which is very fertile for Indian corn. 
It produces also beans, squashes (both small and large) of excellent flavor, 
fruits, and many kinds of roots. They have in especial a certain method ot 
preparing squashes with the Indian corn cooked while in its milk, which they 
mix and cook together and then dry, a food which has a very sweet taste. 
Finally, melons grow there which have a juice no less agreeable than re- 
freshing.* 
The relation of Marquette’s first voyage, 1673-1677, mentions ‘‘ melons, which 
are excellent, especially those that have red seeds,’ among the Illinois.* 
Thence we ascended to Montreal. . . . The latitude is about that of 
Bordeaux, but the climate is very agreeable. The soil is excellent, and if the 
Gardener but throw some Melon seeds on a bit of loosened earth among the 
stones they are sure to grow without any attention on his part. Squashes are 
raised there with still greater ease, but differ much from ours—some of them 
having when cooked, almost the taste of apples or of pears.* 
WATERMELONS AMONG CULTIVATED CROPS OF VIRGINIA INDIANS 
Several Kinds of the Creeping Vines bearing Fruit, the Indians planted in 
their Gardens or Fields, because they would have Plenty of them always. at 
hand; such as Musk-melons, Watermelons, Pompions, Cushaws, Macocks and 
Gourds. 
1. Their Musk-melons resemble the large Jtalian Kind, and generally fill 
Four or Five Quarts. 
2. Their Water-melons were much more large, and of several Kinds, dis- 
tinguished by the Colour of their Meat and Seed; some are red, some yellow, 
and others white meated; and so of the Seed; some are yellow, some red, and 
some black; but these are never of different colours in the same Melon. This 
Fruit the Muscovites call Arpus; the Turks and Tartars Karpus, because they 
are extremely cooling: The Persians call them Hindannes, because they had 
the first Seed of them from the Indies. They are excellently good, and very 
pleasant to the Taste, as also to the Eye; having the Rind of a lively green 
colour, streak’d and water’d, the Meat of a Carnation and the Seed black and 
shining, while it lies in the Melon. 
8. Their Pompions I need not describe, but must say they are much larger and 
finer, than any I ever heard of in England. 
4, Their Cushaws are a kind of Pompion, of a bluish green Sccioar! streaked 
with White, when they are fit for Use. They are larger than the Pompions, 
and have a long, narrow Neck. Perhaps this may be the Heushaw of T. 
Harriot. 
5. Their Macocks are a sort of Melopepones, or lesser sort of Pompion or 
cushaw. Of these they have great Variety; but the Indian Name Macock 
serves for all, which Name is still retain’d among them. Yet the Clypeate 
are sometimes called Cymnels, (as are some others also) from the Lenten Cake 
of that Name, which many of them very much resemble. Squash, or Squanter- 
Squash, is their Name among the Northern Indians, and so they are call’d in 
New-York and New-England. These being boil’d whole, when the Apple is 
young, and the Shell tender, and dished with Cream or Butter, relish yery 
1 Perrot, Mémoire, in Blair, Indians of the Upper Mississippi, vol. 1, p. 113. (Writ- 
ten probably during 1680 to 1718.) 
2 Jesuit Relations, vol. 59, p. 129. 
3 Relation of 1662-1663, in Jesuit Relations, vol. 48, p. 169. 
