306 BUREAU OP AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



one ground mixtly: the manner thereof with the dressing and preparing of the 

 ground, because I will note vnto you the fertilitie of the soile; I thinke good 

 briefly to describe. 



The ground they neuer fatten with mucke, dounge or any other thing ; neither 

 plow nor digge it as we in England, but onely prepare it in sort as foUoweth. 

 A fewe daies before they sowe or set, the men with wooden instruments, made 

 almost in forme of mattockes or hoes with long handles ; the women with short 

 peckers or parers, because they vse them sitting, of a foote long and about flue 

 inches in breadth : doe onely breake the vpper part of the ground po rayse vp 

 the weedes, grasse, & old stubbes of corne stalkes with their rootes. The which 

 after a day or twoes drying in the Sunne, being scrapte vp into many small 

 heapes, to saue them labour for carrying them away ; they burne into ashes. 

 (And whereas some may thinke that they vse the ashes for to better the grounde; 

 I say that then they woulde eyther disperse the ashes abroade; which wee 

 obserued they doe not, except the heapes bee too great: or els would take 

 speciall care to set their corne where the ashes lie, which also wee finde they 

 are carelesse of.) And this is all the husbanding of their ground that they vse. 



Then their setting or sowing is after this maner. First, for their corne, 

 beginning in one corner of the plot, with a pecker they make a hole, wherein 

 they put foure graines with that care they touch not one another, (about an 

 inch asunder) and couer them with the moulde againe: and so through out the 

 whole plot, making such holes and vsing them after such maner : but with this 

 regard that they bee made in rankes, euery ranke differing from other halfe a 

 fadome or a yarde, and the holes in euery ranke, as much. By this meanes 

 there is a yarde spare ground betwene euery hole : where according to discretion 

 here and there, they set as many Beanes and Peaze : in diners places also among 

 the seedes of Macocqiver [pumpkins], Melden [orache] and Planta Solis 

 [sunflower]. 



The ground being thus set according to the rate by vs experimented, an 

 English Acre conteining fourtie pearches in length, and foure in breadth, doeth 

 there yeeld in croppe or of-come of corne, beanes, and peaze, at the least two 

 hundred London bushelles: besides the Macocqwer, Melden, and Planta Solis: 

 When as in England fourtie bushelles of our wheate yeelded out of such an acre 

 is thought to be much. (Harlot, 1893, pp. 23-24.) 



After telling how the Powhatan Indians cleared the ground for 

 their cornfields, Spelman continues: 



In this place they digg many holes which before the English brought them 

 scauvels and spades they vsed to make with a crooked peece of woode beinge 

 scraped on both sides in fation of a gardiners paring Iron. They put in to 

 thes holes ordenarily 4 or 5 curnels of ther wheat [i. e., corn] and 2 beanes 

 like french beanes, which when the wheat doe growe vp hauinge a straw as 

 bigg as a canne reede the beanes runn vp theron like our hopps on poles. 

 The eare of y^ wheat is of great bignes in lenght and cunipace and yet for all 

 the greatnes of it euery stalke hath most commonly sum fower or fiue eares 

 on it. Ther corne is sett and gathered about the time we vse, but ther manner 

 of ther gatheringe is as we doe our apells first in a hand basketts emtiinge 

 them as they are filled into other bigger basketts wherof sum are made 

 of the barkes of trees, sume of heampe which naturally groweth. Now after 

 y® gatheringe, they laye it uppon matts a good thicknes in the soun to drye 

 & euery night they make a great pile of it, coueringe it oner with matts to 

 defend it from the dewe, and when it is suffitiently weathered they pile it 

 up in ther bowses, dayly as occation serueth wringinge the eares in peises 

 betwene ther hands, and so rubbinge out ther corne do put it to a great 



