THE CAYUGA FLORA. 



The Primitive Flora. 



That the basin of Cayuga Lake was originally densely forested 

 over three-fourths of its area, there can be little doubt. It also seems 

 clear that the Cayuga tribe of Indians who were either occupants or 

 overlords of all the territory within, and far south of our limits, had 

 many cleared fields at the time of the arrival on the shores of our 

 lake, of the Jesuits, Father Joseph Chaumonot and Father Rene 

 Menard, in Aug. 1656. Although they dwelt among the Indians until the 

 remarkable flight of all the missionaries in Mar. 1657, before the sup- 

 posed conspiracy of the League; and although they wrote voluminous 

 letters of their life, their trials, their hopes and their failures, there is 

 scarcely a word upon the aspect of the natural world which surrounded 

 them. The mission at Cayuga was restored in 1668, and Stephen de 

 Carheil remained there till 1684, when he was driven out by two 

 Cayuga chiefs. Still we should know nothing of the region had not a 

 Jesuit, Father Raffeix, who evidently had an observant mind, taken de 

 Carheil's place, during a temporary absence of the latter. He was a man 

 of wide experience and had visited the other tribes of the League in their 

 own homes. He writes in the Relations for the year 1671-72, (Quebec 

 Ed. p. 22): "Cayuga is the most beautiful country I have seen in 

 America. It is situated in latitude 42^, and the needle dips scarcely 

 more than ten degrees. It is a country situated between two lakes 1 

 and is no more than four leagues wide, with almost coutinuous plains 

 bordered by beautiful forests. Agnie, (the country of the Mohawks), 

 is a valley very narrow, often very stony, and always covered with 

 fog ; the hills which enclose it seems to me to be very poor land. 

 Oneida and Onondaga, as well as Seneca, appear too rough and too lit- 

 tle adapted to the chase. Every year in the vicinity of Cayuga more 

 than a thousand deer are killed. Four leagues distant from here 2 , on 

 the brink of the river (Seneca outlet) are eight or ten fine salt fountains, 

 in a small space. It is there that numbers of nets are spread for 

 pigeons, and from seven to eight hundred are often taken at a single 

 stroke of the net. Lake Tiohero, one of the two which join our 

 canton, is fully fourteen leagues long and one or two broad. It 

 abounds in swan and geese all winter, and in the spring one sees a 

 continuous cloud of all sorts of game. The river which rises in the 

 lake, soon divides into different channels enclosed by prairies, with 

 here and there fine and attractive bays of considerable extent, excel- 

 lent places for hunting." It is not difficult to picture to one's self the 

 country here described. The marshes were as they are now, while 

 all the country about, used by the Indians for the purpose of deer- 

 stalking, was made up of "continuous plains" (the "oak-openings") 

 bordered by the forest. The openings were kept clear by the Indians, 

 by annually burning them over. These openings were described 



'Owasco and Cayuga Lakes. 



2 He wrote from Goiogouen or Cayuga, a town on the bank of Big 

 Gully, and refers here to the salt springs north of the old Demont 

 tavern and bridge, west side of Cayuga marshes. 



