REPORT ON FORESTS. 253 



sherds, broken shells, bones and bits of jasper. At certain times 

 of the year large numbers crossed the State to enjoy for a time 

 the bathing and fruits of the sea, but the permanent population 

 ^as never large. The Indian of New Jersey domesticated no 

 animals and cultivated only a few plants. His clumsy stone 

 implements were so unwieldy and impotent that he was unable 

 to exterminate animals or cut down forests.* He depended 

 mainly upon the fruits and animals of the woods. He needed 

 only wood for fuel, which was everywhere plentiful, and white- 

 cedar logs, out of which to shape his canoes. The rivers were 

 his highways, the canoe his conveyance. Fires, no doubt, were 

 set both accidentally and purposely by the Indian, but in South- 

 ern New Jersey they were probably infrequent, and did compar- 

 atively little damage. Indians in parts of Western America still 

 fire the bushf to facilitate hunting. They desire open prairies 

 and intervales for their game. In many places east of the Missis- 

 sippi river, after the Indians departed, prairie fires which they 

 had purposely set every year, became less frequent, and forest 

 vegetation in consequence began to appear in the open land. 



He has left his impress upon the country however, and Indian 

 "words are indelibly attached to many localities, and to the names 

 of many plants and animals, such as persimmon, chinkapin, hick- 

 ory, tamarack, mahogany, pecan, etc. 



Although the Algonquin Indian of New Jersey was dependent 

 upon the forest and still in a primitive state, he cultivated small 

 patches of maize and perhaps other vegetables, and was familiar 

 with the edible wild plants. From the Indian the whites learned 

 ■of a tree {Acer saccharum) with a sweet palatable sap J that grew 



* " The chief use of the hatchets among the Delaware Indians of New Jersey/' says Kalm, " was to 

 jnalce good fields for maize plantations. If the ground was covered with woods, they cut oflF the bark all 

 round the trees with their hatchets at a time when they lose their sap. The trees thus girdled died, and 

 .the giound was a little turned up with crooked or sharp branches " 



f The term " bush " is a peculiar one. It iisually means a single low woody plant. In certain 

 regions, however, it is applied to a wild forest with a dense underbrush. The sugar maple forest or 

 orchard is sometimes called the " sugar-bush." The word in Dntch is " bosch,' ' and means forest, and, 

 no doubt, the Hollanders were the first to apply it in this sense in South Africa and America. The word 

 " bois " in French and " bosco " in Italian are probably modifications of the same word. There is an old 

 English word " boscage," which means a thioket or woodland growth. In old English law boscage 

 meant food for cattle derived from trees or bushes, also a tax on wood brought into a city. 



X Col. Wm, Fox, in his paper on the maple-sugar industry, in the latest report of the New York State 

 Forest Game and Fisheries Commission, says : " For our first knowledge of this product we are 

 indebted to the North American Indian, the same people who gave us com and tobacco. From the 

 records of the earliest explorers on this continent it appears that the Indians tapped the maples, gathered 

 the sap in rude receptacles, and boiled it. The first white settlers used the same methods, which substan- 

 tially remain unchanged to day." 



