304 BUREAU OF AMERICAN EmiN0L.0<3Y [Bull. 137 



The salts they mix with their bread and soup, to give them a relish, are 

 alkalis, viz: ashes, and calcined bones of deer and other animals. Salads, 

 they never eat any, as for pepper and mustard, they reckon us little better than 

 madmen, to make use of it amongst our victuals. (Lawson, 1860, p. 361.) 



HORTICULTURE 



Farming in the Gulf province usually involved preliminary work 

 in clearing the ground of trees and bushes. In North Carolina, Law- 

 son (1860, p. 140) says the best lands were not used because of the 

 size of the trees growing upon them, and Strachey (1849, p. 60) men- 

 tions one place in Virginia (Kecoughtan) in which the concentration 

 of Indians and their greater skill as husbandmen was attributed to 

 the fact that so much land was clear and open, about 2,000 acres being 

 suitable for planting. Rich land adapted to cultivation and not 

 seriously encumbered with trees would, of course, attract population 

 as soon as agriculture was introduced in the section, and upon that 

 would follow social and political leadership. This is perhaps an 

 additional reason why leadership in most of the Gulf region rested 

 with inland tribes, though the handicap was overcome in spots by 

 abundance of sea food. The method of clearing land, where that 

 was necessary, seems to have been the same everywhere. Adair says : 



In the first clearing of their plantations, they only bark the large timber, cut 

 down the sapplings and underwood, and burn them in heaps; as the suckers 

 shoot up, they chop them ofC close to the stump, of which they make fires to 

 deaden the roots, till in time they decay. Though, to a stranger, this may seem 

 to be a lazy method of clearing the wood-lands ; yet it is the most expeditious 

 method they could have pitched upon, under their circumstances, as a common 

 hoe and a small hatchet are all their implements for clearing and planting. 

 (Adair, 1775, pp. 405-406.) 



This process is practically identical with that described by Smith, 

 Strachey, and Beverley as the one usual in Virginia. 



The greatest labour they take, is in planting their corne, for the country 

 naturally is overgrowne with wood. To prepare the ground they bruise the 

 bark of the trees neare the roote, then do they scortch the roots with fire 

 that they grow no more. The next yeare with a crooked peece of wood, they 

 beat up the woodes by the rootes; and in that moulds, they plant their corne. 

 (Smith, Tyler ed., 1907, pp. 95-96.) 



Strachey's words are practically identical. It would seem that 

 only the small saplings could have been "beat up" with the primitive 

 instruments available, the larger trees being left to die and fall to 

 pieces, as stated by Adair and again by Beverley. Spelman, how- 

 ever, affirms more robust treatment: 



They take most commonly a place about their bowses to sett ther corne, 

 which if ther be much wood, in that place they cutt doune the greate trees 

 sum half a yard aboue the ground, and y* smaller they burne at the roote puUinge 

 a good part of barke from them to make them die. (Spelman, in Smith, Arber 

 ed., 1884, p. cxl.) 



