The History of Virginia, in Four Parts

CHAPTER IV. (2)

OF THE WILD FRUITS OF THE COUNTRY.

§ 11. Of fruits natural to the country, there is great abundance, but the several species of them are produced according to the difference of the soil, and the various situation of the country; it being impossible that one piece of ground should produce so many different kinds intermixed. Of the better sorts of the wild fruits that I have met with, I will barely give you the names, not designing a natural history. And when I have done that, possibly I may not mention one-half of what the country affords, because I never went out of my way to enquire after anything of this nature.

§ 12. Of stoned fruits, I have met with three good sorts, viz: Cherries, plums and persimmons.

1. Of cherries natural to the country, and growing wild in the woods, I have seen three sorts. Two of these grow upon trees as big as the common English white oak, whereof one grows in bunches like grapes. Both these sorts are black without, and but one of them red within. That which is red within, is more palatable than the English black cherry, as being without its bitterness. The other, which hangs on the branch like grapes, is water colored within, of a faintish sweet, and greedily devoured by the small birds. The third sort is called the Indian cherry, and grows higher up in the country than the others do. It is commonly found by the sides of rivers and branches on small slender trees, scarce able to support themselves, about the bigness of the peach trees in England. This is certainly the most delicious cherry in the world; it is of a dark purple when ripe, and grows upon a single stalk like the English cherry, but is very small, though, I suppose, it may be made larger by cultivation, if anybody would mind it. These, too, are so greedily devoured by the small birds, that they won't let them remain on the tree long enough to ripen; by which means, they are rarely known to any, and much more rarely tasted, though, perhaps, at the same time they grow just by the houses.

2. The plums, which I have observed to grow wild there, are of two sorts, the black and the Murrey plum, both which are small, and have much the same relish with the damson.

3. The persimmon is by Heriot called the Indian plum; and so Smith, Purchase, and Du Lake, call it after him; but I can't perceive that any of those authors had ever heard of the sorts I have just now mentioned, they growing high up in the country. These persimmons, amongst them, retain their Indian name. They are of several sizes, between the bigness of a damson plum and a burgamot pear. The taste of them is so very rough, it is not to be endured till they are fully ripe, and then they are a pleasant fruit. Of these, some vertuosi make an agreeable kind of beer, to which purpose they dry them in cakes, and lay them up for use. These, like most other fruits there, grow as thick upon the trees as ropes of onions: the branches very often break down by the mighty weight of the fruit.

§ 13. Of berries there is a great variety, and all very good in their kinds. Our mulberries are of three sorts, two black and one white; the long black sort are the best, being about the bigness of a boy's thumb; the other two sorts are of the shape of the English mulberry, short and thick, but their taste does not so generally please, being of a faintish sweet, without any tartness. They grow upon well spread, large bodied trees, which run up surprisingly fast. These are the proper food of the silk-worm.

1. There grow naturally two sorts of currants, one red and the other black, more sweet than those of the same color in England. They grow upon small bushes, or slender trees.2. There are three sorts of hurts, or huckleberries, upon bushes, from two to ten feet high. They grow in the valleys and sunken grounds, having different relishes; but are all pleasing to the taste. The largest sort grow upon the largest bushes, and, I think, are the best berries.

3. Cranberries grow in the low lands and barren sunken grounds, upon low bushes, like the gooseberry, and are much of the same size. They are of a lively red, when gathered and kept in water, and make very good tarts. I believe these are the berries which Captain Smith compared to the English gooseberry, and called Rawcomens; having, perhaps, seen them only on the bushes, where they are always very sour.

4. The wild raspberry is by some there preferred to those that were transplanted thither from England; but I cannot be of their opinion.

5. Strawberries they have, as delicious as any in the world, and growing almost every where in the woods and fields. They are eaten almost by all creatures; and yet are so plentiful that very few persons take care to transplant them, but can find enough to fill their baskets, when they have a mind, in the deserted old fields.

§ 14. There grow wild several sorts of good nuts, viz.: chestnuts, chinkapins, hazelnuts, hickories, walnuts, &c.

1. Chestnuts are found upon very high trees, growing in barren ridges. They are something less than the French chestnut; but, I think not differing at all in taste.

2. Chinkapins have a taste something like a chestnut, and grow in a husk or bur, being of the same sort of substance, but not so big as an acorn. They grow upon large bushes, some about as high as the common apple trees in England, and either in the high or low, but always barren ground.

3. Hazelnuts are there in infinite plenty, in all the swamps; and towards the heads of the rivers, whole acres of them are found upon the high land.

4. Hickory nuts are of several sorts, all growing upon great trees, and in an husk, like the French walnut, except that the husk is not so thick, and more apt to open. Some of these nuts are inclosed in so hard a shell, that a light hammer will hardly crack them; and when they are cracked, their kernel is fastened with so firm a web, that there is no coming at it. Several other sorts I have seen with thinner shells, whose kernels may be got with less trouble. There are also several sorts of hickories, called pig nuts, some of which have as thin a shell as the best French walnuts, and yield their meat very easily; they are all of the walnut kind.

5. They have a sort of walnut they call black walnuts, which are as big again as any I ever saw in England, but are very rank and oily, having a thick, hard, foul shell, and come not clear of the husk as the walnut in France doth; but the inside of the nut, and leaves, and growing of the tree, declare it to be of the walnut kind.

6. Their woods likewise afford a vast variety of acorns, seven sorts of which have fallen under my observation. That which grows upon the live oak, buds, ripens and drops off the tree, almost the whole year around. All their acorns are very fat and oily; but the live oak acorn is much more so than the rest, and I believe the making of oil of them would turn to a good account; but now they only serve as mast for the hogs and other wild creatures, as do all the other fruits aforementioned, together with several other sorts of mast growing upon the beach, pine and other trees. The same use is made also of diverse sorts of pulse and other fruits growing upon wild vines; such as peas, beans, vetches, squashes, maycocks, maracocks, melons, cucumbers, lupines, and an infinity of other sorts of fruits, which I cannot name.

§ 15. Grapes grow wild there in an incredible plenty and variety, some of which are very sweet and pleasant to the taste; others rough and harsh, and perhaps fitter for wine or brandy. I have seen great trees covered with single vines, and those vines almost hid with the grapes. Of these wild grapes, besides those large ones in the mountains, mentioned by Batt in his discovery, I have observed four very different kinds, viz:

1. One of these sorts grows among the sand banks upon the edges of the low grounds, and islands next the bay and sea, and also in the swamps and breaches of the uplands. They grow thin in small bunches, and upon very low vines. These are noble grapes; and though they are wild in the woods, are as large as the Dutch gooseberry. One species of them is white, others purple, blue and black, but all much alike in flavor; and some long, some round.

2. A second kind is produced throughout the whole country, in the swamps and sides of hills. These also grow upon small vines, and in small bunches; but are themselves the largest grapes, as big as the English bullace, and of a rank taste when ripe, resembling the smell of a fox, from whence they are called fox grapes. Both these sorts make admirable tarts, being of a fleshy substance, and perhaps, if rightly managed, might make good raisins.

3. There are two species more that are common to the whole country, some of which are black, and some blue on the outside, and some white. They grow upon vast large vines, and bear very plentifully. The nice observer might perhaps distinguish them into several kinds, because they differ in color, size, and relish; but I shall divide them only into two, viz: the early and the late ripe. The early ripe common grape is much larger, sweeter and better than the other. Of these some are quite black, and others blue, and some white or yellow; some also ripen three weeks or a month before the other. The distance of their ripening, is from the latter end of August to the latter end of October. The late ripe common grapes are less than any of the other, neither are they so pleasant to the taste. They hang commonly till the latter end of November, or till Christmas; all that I have seen of these are black. Of the former of these two sorts, the French refugees at the Monacan town made a sort of claret, though they were gathered off of the wild vines in the woods. I was told by a very good judge who tasted it, that it was a pleasant, strong, and full bodied wine. From which we may conclude, that if the wine was but tolerable good when made of the wild grape, which is shaded by the woods from the sun, it would be much better if produced of the same grape cultivated in a regular vineyard.

The year before the massacre, Anno 1622, which destroyed so many good projects for Virginia, some French vignerons were sent thither to make an experiment of their vines. These people were so in love with the country, that the character they then gave of it in their letters to the company in England, was very much to its advantage, namely: "That it far excelled their own country of Languedoc, the vines growing in great abundance and variety all over the land; that some of the grapes were of that unusual bigness, that they did not believe them to be grapes, until by opening them they had seen their kernels; that they had planted the cuttings of their vines at Michaelmas, and had grapes from those very cuttings the spring following. Adding in the conclusion, that they had not heard of the like in any other country." Neither was this out of the way, for I have made the same experiment, both of their natural vine and of the plants sent thither from England.

The copies of the letters, here quoted, to the company in England, are still to be seen; and Purchase, in his fourth volume of pilgrims, has very justly quoted some of them.

§ 16. The honey and sugar trees are likewise spontaneous near the heads of the rivers. The honey tree bears a thick swelling pod, full of honey, appearing at a distance like the bending pod of a bean or pea; it is very like the carob tree in the herbals. The sugar tree yields a kind of sap or juice, which by boiling is made into sugar. This juice is drawn out by wounding the trunk of the tree, and placing a receiver under the wound. It is said that the Indians make one pound of sugar out of eight pounds of the liquor. Some of this sugar I examined very carefully. It was bright and moist, with a large, full grain, the sweetness of it being like that of good muscovado.

Though this discovery has not been made by the English above 28 or thirty years, yet it has been known among the Indians before the English settled there. It was found out by the English after this manner: The soldiers which were kept on the land frontiers to clear them of the Indians, taking their range through a piece of low ground about forty miles above the then inhabited parts of Potomac river, and resting themselves in the woods of those low grounds, observed an inspissate juice, like molasses, distilling from the tree. The heat of the sun had candied some of this juice, which gave the men a curiosity to taste it. They found it sweet, and by this process of nature learned to improve it into sugar. But the Christian inhabitants are now settled where many of these trees grow, but it hath not yet been tried, whether for quantity or quality it may be worth while to cultivate this discovery.

Thus the Canada Indians make sugar of the sap of a tree. And Peter Martyr mentions a tree that yields the like sap, but without any description. The eleomeli of the ancients, a sweet juice like honey, is said to be got by wounding the olive tree; and the East Indians extract a sort of sugar, they call jagra, from the juice, or potable liquor, that flows from the coco tree. The whole process of boiling, graining and refining of which, is accurately set down by the authors of Hortus Malabaricus.

§ 17. At the mouth of their rivers, and all along upon the sea and bay, and near many of their creeks and swamps, grows the myrtle, bearing a berry, of which they make a hard brittle wax, of a curious green color, which by refining becomes almost transparent. Of this they make candles, which are never greasy to the touch, nor melt with lying in the hottest weather; neither does the snuff of these ever offend the smell like that of a tallow candle; but instead of being disagreeable, if an accident put a candle out, it yields a pleasant fragrancy to all that are in the room; insomuch, that nice people often put them out, on purpose to have the incense of the expiring snuff.

The melting of these berries is said to have been first found out by a surgeon in New England, who performed wonderful things, with a salve made of them. This discovery is very modern, notwithstanding these countries have been so long settled.

The method of managing these berries is by boiling them in water, till they come to be entirely dissolved, except the stone or seed in the middle, which amounts in quantity to about half the bulk of the berry; the biggest of which is something less than a corn of pepper.

There are also in the plains, and rich low grounds of the freshes, abundance of hops, which yield their product without any labor of the husbandman, in weeding, hilling or poling.

§ 18. All over the country is interspersed here and there a surprising variety of curious plants and flowers. They have a sort of briar, growing something like the sarsaparilla. The berry of this is as big as a pea, and as round, the seed being of a bright crimson color. It is very hard, and finely polished by nature, so that it might be put to diverse ornamental uses, as necklaces are, &c.

There are several woods, plants and earths, which have been fit for the dying of curious colors. They have the puccoon and musquaspen, two roots, with which the Indians use to paint themselves red. And a berry, which grows upon a wild briar, dyes a handsome blue. There is the sumac and the sassafras, which make a deep yellow. Mr. Heriot tells us of several others which he found at Pamtego, and gives the Indian names of them; but that language being not understood by the Virginians, I am not able to distinguish which he means. Particularly he takes notice of wasebur, an herb; chapacour, a root; and tangomockonominge, a bark.

There's the snake root, so much admired in England for a cordial, and for being a great antidote in all pestilential distempers.There's the rattlesnake root, to which no remedy was ever yet found comparable; for it effectually cures the bite of a rattlesnake, which sometimes has been mortal in two minutes. If this medicine be early applied, it presently removes the infection, and in two or three hours restores the patient to as perfect health as if he had never been hurt.

The Jamestown weed (which resembles the thorny apple of Peru, and I take to be the plant so called) is supposed to be one of the greatest coolers in the world. This being an early plant, was gathered very young for a boiled salad, by some of the soldiers sent thither to quell the rebellion of Bacon; and some of them eat plentifully of it, the effect of which was a very pleasant comedy; for they turned natural fools upon it for several days: one would blow up a feather in the air; another would dart straws at it with much fury; and another stark naked was sitting up in a corner, like a monkey, grinning and making mows at them; a fourth would fondly kiss and paw his companions, and snear in their faces, with a countenance more antic than any in a Dutch droll. In this frantic condition they were confined, lest they should in their folly destroy themselves; though it was observed that all their actions were full of innocence and good nature. Indeed, they were not very cleanly, for they would have wallowed in their own excrements if they had not been prevented. A thousand such simple tricks they played, and after eleven days returned to themselves again, not remembering anything that had passed.

Perhaps this was the same herb that Mark Antony's army met with in his retreat from the Parthian war and siege of Phraata, when such as had eaten thereof employed themselves with much earnestness and industry in grubbing up stones, and removing them from one place to another, as if it had been a business of the greatest consequence. Wine, as the story says, was found a sovereign remedy for it, which is likely enough, the malignity of this herb being cold.Of spontaneous flowers they have an unknown variety: the finest crown imperial in the world; the cardinal flower, so much extolled for its scarlet color, is almost in every branch; the moccasin flower, and a thousand others not yet known to English herbalists. Almost all the year round the levels and vales are beautified with flowers of one kind or other, which make their woods as fragrant as a garden. From the materials, their wild bees make vast quantities of honey, but their magazines are very often rifled by bears, raccoons, and such like liquorish vermin.

About the year 1701, walking out to take the air, I found, a little without my pasture fence, a flower as big as a tulip, and upon a stalk resembling the stalk of a tulip. The flower was of a flesh color, having a down upon one end, while the other was plain. The form of it resembled the pudenda of a man and woman lovingly joined in one. Not long after I had discovered this rarity, and while it was still in bloom, I drew a grave gentleman, about an hundred yards out of his way, to see this curiosity, not telling him anything more than that it was a rarity, and such perhaps as he had never seen nor heard of. When we arrived at the place, I gathered one of them, and put it into his hand, which he had no sooner cast his eye upon, but he threw it away with indignation, as being ashamed of this waggery of nature. It was impossible to persuade him to touch it again, or so much as to squint towards so immodest a representation. Neither would I presume to mention such an indecency, but that I thought it unpardonable to omit a production so extraordinary.

There is also found the fine tulip-bearing laurel tree, which has the pleasantest smell in the world, and keeps blossoming and seeding several months together. It delights much in gravelly branches of chrystal streams, and perfumes the very woods with its odor. So also do the large tulip tree, which we call a poplar, the locust, which resembles much the jasmine, and the perfuming crab tree, during their season. With one sort or other of these, as well as many other sweet-flowering trees not named, the vales are almost everywhere adorned, and yield a surprising variety to divert the traveler.

They find a world of medicinal plants likewise in that country, and amongst the rest the planters pretend to have a swamp-root, which infallibly cures all fevers and agues. The bark of the sassafras tree and wild cherry tree have been experimented to partake very much of the virtue of the cortex peruviana. The bark of the root, of that which we call the prickly ash, being dried and powdered, has been found to be a specific in old ulcers and long running sores. Infinite is the number of other valuable vegetables of every kind; but natural history not having been my study, I am unwilling to do wrong to my subject by an unskillful description.

§ 19. Several kinds of the creeping vines bearing fruit, the Indians planted in their gardens or fields, because they would have plenty of them always at hand; such as muskmelons, watermelons, pompions, cushaws, macocks and gourds.

1. Their muskmelons resemble the large Italian kind, and generally fill four or five quarts.

2. Their watermelons were much more large, and of several kinds, distinguished by the color of their meat and seed; some are red, some yellow, and others white meated; and so of the seed, some are yellow, some red, and some black; but these are never of different colors in the same melon. This fruit the Muscovites call arpus; the Turks and Tartars karpus, because they are extremely cooling. The Persians call them hindnanes, because they had the first seed of them from the Indies. They are excellently good, and very pleasant to the taste, as also to the eye; having the rind of a lively green color, streaked and watered, the meat of a carnation, and the seed black and shining, while it lies in the melon.3. Their pompions I need not describe, but must say they are much larger and finer than any I ever heard of in England.

4. Their cushaws are a kind of pompion, of a bluish green color, streaked with white, when they are fit for use. They are larger than the pompions, and have a long narrow neck. Perhaps this may be the ecushaw of T. Harriot.

5. Their macocks are a sort of melopepones, or lesser sort of pompion or cushaw. Of these they have great variety; but the Indian name macock serves for all, which name is still retained among them. Yet the clypeatÆ are sometimes called cymnels, (as are some others also,) from the lenten cake of that name, which many of them very much resemble. Squash, or squanter-squash, is their name among the northern Indians, and so they are called in New York and New England. These being boiled whole, when the apple is young, and the shell tender, and dished with cream or butter, relish very well with all sorts of butcher's meat, either fresh or salt. And whereas the pompion is never eaten till it be ripe, these are never eaten after they are ripe.

6. The Indians never eat the gourds, but plant them for other uses. Yet the Persians, who likewise abound with this sort of fruit, eat the cucurbita lagenaris, which they call kabach, boiling it while it is green, before it comes to its full maturity, for when it is ripe the rind dries, and grows as hard as the bark of a tree, and the meat within is so consumed and dried away, that there is then nothing left but the seed, which the Indians take clean out, and afterwards use the shells, instead of flagons and cups, as is done also in several other parts of the world.

7. The maracock, which is the fruit of what we call the passion flower, our natives did not take the pains to plant, having enough of it growing everywhere, though they often eat it; this fruit is about the size of a pullet's egg.

§ 20. Besides all these, our natives had originally amongst them Indian corn, peas, beans, potatoes and tobacco.

This Indian corn was the staff of food upon which the Indians did ever depend; for when sickness, bad weather, war, or any other ill accident kept them from hunting, fishing and fowling, this, with the addition of some peas, beans, and such other fruits of the earth, as were then in season, was the family's dependence, and the support of their women and children.

There are four sorts of Indian corn: two of which are early ripe, and two late ripe, all growing in the same manner; every single grain of this when planted produces a tall upright stalk, which has several ears hanging on the sides of it, from six to ten inches long. Each ear is wrapt up in a cover of many folds, to protect it from the injuries of the weather. In every one of these ears are several rows of grain, set close to one another, with no other partition but of a very thin husk. So that oftentimes the increase of this grain amounts to above a thousand for one.

The two sorts which are early ripe, are distinguished only by the size, which shows itself as well in the grain as in the ear and the stalk. There is some difference also in the time of ripening.

The lesser size of early ripe corn yields an ear not much larger than the handle of a case knife, and grows upon a stalk between three and four feet high. Of this may be made two crops in a year, and perhaps there might be heat enough in England to ripen it.

The larger sort differs from the former only in largeness, the ear of this being seven or eight inches long, as thick as a child's leg, and growing upon a stalk nine or ten feet high. This is fit for eating about the latter end of June, whereas the smaller sort (generally speaking) affords ears fit to roast by the middle of June. The grains of both these sorts are as plump and swelled as if the skin were ready to burst.The late ripe corn is diversified by the shape of the grain only, without any respect to the accidental differences in color, some being blue, some red, some yellow, some white, and some streaked. That therefore which makes the distinction, is the plumpness or shriveling of the grain; the one looks as smooth and as full as the early ripe corn, and this they call flint corn; the other has a larger grain, and looks shriveled, with a dent on the back of the grain, as if it had never come to perfection; and this they call she corn. This is esteemed by the planters as the best for increase, and is universally chosen by them for planting; yet I can't see but that this also produces the flint corn, accidentally among the other.

All these sorts are planted alike in rows, three, four or five grains in a hill; the larger sort at four or five feet distance, the lesser sort nearer. The Indians used to give it one or two weedings, and make a hill about it, and so the labor was done. They likewise plant a bean in the same hill with the corn, upon whose stalk it sustains itself.

The Indians sowed peas sometimes in the intervals of the rows of corn, but more generally in a patch of ground by themselves. They have an unknown variety of them, (but all of a kidney shape,) some of which I have met with wild; but whence they had their Indian corn I can give no account; for I don't believe that it was spontaneous in those parts.

Their potatoes are either red or white, about as long as a boy's leg, and sometimes as long and big as both the leg and thigh of a young child, and very much resembling it in shape. I take these kinds to be the same with those which are represented in the herbals to be Spanish potatoes. I am sure those called English or Irish potatoes are nothing like these, either in shape, color or taste. The way of propagating potatoes there, is by cutting the small ones to pieces, and planting the cuttings in hills of loose earth; but they are so tender, that it is very difficult to preserve them in the winter, for the least frost coming at them, rots and destroys them, and therefore people bury 'em under ground, near the fire-hearth, all the winter, until the time comes that their seedings are to be set.

How the Indians ordered their tobacco I am not certain, they now depending chiefly upon the English for what they smoke; but I am informed they used to let it all run to seed, only succoring the leaves to keep the sprouts from growing upon, and starving them; and when it was ripe they pulled off the leaves, cured them in the sun, and laid them up for use. But the planters make a heavy bustle with it now, and can't please the market neither.

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