foliage, declined rapidly in vigor and died, leaving the trunk and limbs too bare to shut out the rays of the sun. In a few years they were blown down by the wind, having become too much decayed to remain erect. The smaller trees were either broken down or severed by the blows of a stone hatchet. The preparation of the ground for planting was practically the same whether the soil was that of an old or a new field. Manure was used in neither instance, most probably because it was not required. The instruments employed in cultivation were hoes, consisting of a crooked piece of wood fashioned like a gardener’s paring iron,[1] or of a stick to which the horn or shoulder-blade of a deer was attached; these rude instruments were used by the aboriginal laborers in a sitting posture, the tillers merely seeking to loosen the surface of the ground, the only object which they had in view being to dig up the weeds and grass and to remove the maizestalks. After this vegetation had been allowed to dry several days in the sun, it was brought together in small heaps and burnt, but no attempt was made to use the residuum of ashes as a fertilizer.[2] If the ground consisted of virgin soil on which the belted trees were still standing, it was only sought to destroy the superficial network of roots. Beginning in one corner of the field, whether old or new, the Indian husbandmen made a series of holes, separated from each other by intervals of four feet, and in each hole four grains of maize and two beans were deposited, each grain or bean being an inch apart from its fellows, special precaution being taken that they should not touch each other.[3] In
- ↑ Spelman’s Relation of Virginia, p. cxi.
- ↑ Hariot, p. 15.
- ↑ They make a hole in the earth with a sticke and into it they put foure graines of wheate and two of beanes.” Works of Capt. John Smith, p. 357. See Devries’ Voyages from Holland to America, for the methods followed by the Indians of the New Netherlands in planting maize.
