22
A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD.
1772.
August.
who are constantly supplied, and are thus enabled to spare some of it.
Wherever a level piece of ground can be contrived in the higher hills, the natives make plantations of eddoes (arum esculentum, Linn.) enclosed by a kind of dyke to cause a stagnation, as that plant succeeds best in swampy ground. Its leaves serve as food for hogs, and the country people use the roots for their own nourishment.
The sweet potatoe (convolvulus batatas) is planted for the same purpose, and makes a principal article of diet; together with chesnuts, which grow in extensive woods, on the higher parts of the island, where the vine will not thrive. Wheat and barley are likewise sown, especially in spots where the vines are decaying through age, or where they are newly planted. But the crops do not produce above three months provisions, and the inhabitants are therefore obliged to have recourse to other food, besides importing considerable quantities of corn from North-America in exchange for wine. The want of manure, and the inactivity of the people, are in some measure the causes of this disadvantage; but supposing husbandry to be carried to its perfection here, I believe they could not raise corn sufficient for their consumption. They make their threshing-floors of a circular form, in a corner of the field, which is cleared and beaten solid for the purpose. The sheaves are laid round about it, and a square board
stuck
