ings were all sorts of grain, such as "wheat, rye, peas, oats, 
barley, buckwheat, rice, Indian corn, Indian peas, and beans, 
with great quantities of hemp, and flax; as also several sorts 
of edible roots, as turnips, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, etc., 
all which are produced yearly in greater quantities than in 
England, those roots being much larger and altogether as 
sweet, if not more delicious; cucumbers, cashaws, artichokes, 
with many others; most sorts of saladings, besides what 
grows naturally wild in the country and that in great plenty 
also, as mustard, rice, sage, mint, tansy, wormwood, penny- 
royal, and purslane, and most of the herbs and roots found 
in the gardens in England. There are several husbandmen, 
who sow yearly between seventy and eighty acres of wheat 
each, besides barley, oats, rye, peas, beans, and other grain. 
The common planting fruit trees are apples, which from 
a kernal. (without inoculating) will shoot up to be a large 
tree, and produce very delicious, large and pleasant fruit, 
of which much excellent cider is made, in taste resembling 
that in England made from pippins, and pearmains, sold 
commonly for between 10 and 15 shillings per barrel. Pears, 
peaches, etc.. of which they distil a liquor much like the 
taste of rum or brandy, which they yearly make in great 
quantities. There are quinces, cherries, gooseberries, cur- 
rants, squashes, pumpkins, water-melons, mush-melons, and 
other fruits in great numbers, which seldom fail of yielding 
great plenty. There are also many curious and excellent 
physical wild herbs, roots and drugs of great virtue, and 
very sanative, such as the sassafras, and sarsaparilla, so much 
used in diet drinks, which makes the Indians by the right 
application of them, as able doctors and surgeons as any in 
Europe. There grows also in great plenty, the Black Snake 
Root (famed for its sometimes preserving, but often curing 
the plague, being infused only in wine, brandy or rum), 
rattle-snake root, poke root, called in England jallop, and 
several other beneficial herbs, plants, and roots, which 
physicians have approved of, far exceeding in nature and 
virtue, those of other countries." 
