CULTIVATED FOODS.

Hunting and fishing did not furnish either sufficient or satisfactory food for the Indians. A portion of their time was spent in cultivating certain products of the soil. Black Hawk, a famous Indian chief, writes: "When we returned to our village in the spring from our hunting grounds we would open the caches and take out corn and other provisions which had been put up in the fall, and then commence repairing our lodges. As soon as this is accomplished we repair the fences around our fields and clean them off ready for planting corn. This work is done by our women. The men, during this time, are feasting on dried venison, bear's meat, wild fowl and corn.

"Our women plant the corn, and as soon as they get done we make a feast and dance the corn dance. At this feast our young braves select the young woman they wish to have for a wife. When this is over we feast again and have our national dance.

"When our national dance is over, our corn-fields hoed, and every weed dug up, and our corn about knee high, all our young men would start in a direction toward sundown to hunt deer and buffalo, and the remainder of our people start to fish. Every one leaves the village and remains away about forty days. They then return, the hunting party bringing in dried buffalo and deer meat, the others dried fish.

"This is a happy season of the year; having plenty of provision, such as beans, squashes, and other produce, with our dried meat and fish, we continue to make feasts and visit each other until our corn is ripe.

"When the corn is fit for use another great ceremony takes place, with feasting and returning thanks to the Great Spirit for giving us corn. We continue our sport and feasting until the corn is all secured. We then prepare to leave our village for our hunting grounds."

Thus we see that the most important crop among the Indians was maize or Indian corn. This grain is specially suited to the climate and soil of a large portion of the country; it was wholly unknown to the Europeans who first came to America.

John Smith in Virginia and Roger Williams in New England were much interested in the Indian corn. It is from their writings that we learn how the red men cultivated and used this strange product of the New World.

As corn was the Indians' main dependence, they ate it at all times and in various ways. They roasted the green ears in the ashes; sometimes they cut the kernels from the cob and boiled them with beans, making a kind of succotash. Meal was made by pounding the kernels in a wooden mortar; if the corn was old it was soaked over night and pounded in the morning.

This meal also was cooked in different ways. Sometimes it was wrapped in corn husks and boiled; at other times it was mixed with water and made into cakes, which were baked in the ashes of the fire. Often a pudding was made from the meal, in which blackberries were placed. When the Indians travelled, they were accustomed to carry enough of this meal to last several days, either in a small basket or a hollow leathern girdle.

Such was life among the Indians. Usually food was plenty and feasting was common, but at times food was scarce and fasting was necessary. If the Indian had sufficient for to-day, he cared little for to-morrow. If the corn crop failed or if the hunting expedition turned out badly, the red man accepted it as a necessary evil and made no complaint.

The first Englishmen to learn of the foods that could be obtained in the New World were two captains sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh to explore the Atlantic coast of America. They returned full of enthusiasm for the fertile soil and the delightful climate of Virginia. They praised also the kindness of the Indians, who provided them with the best of food—deer, hares, fish, walnuts, melons, cucumbers, peas, and corn.

Apparently there was an abundance of food in the New World—flesh, fish, fruits, nuts, vegetables, and grain. The sailors were not farmers, however; nor were the colonists who came over the next year. They had no knowledge of the labor necessary to till the soil and raise the food, and after a year on Roanoke Island they returned to England.

Twenty years later the colonists at Jamestown were no more ready to labor at farming than those at Roanoke had been. Numbers died from hunger during the first summer, but the leader, John Smith, was able, from his own strength of character, to hold survivors to the work until a fair abundance of corn had been obtained. Meanwhile Smith managed to buy or borrow provisions from the Indians.

The settlers at Plymouth arrived in early winter and found a climate much colder than that of England or Holland. They could not hope to harvest a crop before the next autumn, and they also were dependent upon the red men for many months.

Soon after the Mayflower arrived in Provincetown harbor an expedition was sent out to search for the best spot to build a village. They followed the tracks of Indians, but could not find them nor their dwellings. The first sign of human life was a piece of clear ground which had been planted some years before. Going a little farther they found a field in which the stubble was new, showing that the ground had been recently cultivated. Finally they came upon "heaps of sand newly paddled with their hands." Led by curiosity the Pilgrims digged in these places and found several baskets filled with corn. This grain seemed to the Pilgrims a "very goodly sight," though they had never seen corn before. They carried the grain back to the ship, and when the Indians who owned the corn were found, the Pilgrims gladly paid them its full value.

When spring came the colonists at Plymouth began making preparations for planting. An Indian, named Squanto, who had previously been carried to England and had learned to speak some English, showed himself very friendly. He taught them how to prepare the fish which must be put in every hill for a fertilizer. He directed the planting and cultivating of the fields. As a result they had "a good increase." They were not so successful in other ways, for their barley crop was very light and their peas dried up with the sun.

A curious story is found in some old records. The dogs in a Plymouth colony town caused the farmers great trouble by digging up the alewives which they were accustomed to place in the hills. Therefore a law was passed that required the owner of every dog either to keep him securely tied for forty days after the fields were prepared, or to tie a forepaw to his head so that it would be impossible for the dog to dig in the newly prepared hill.

Two years later the Pilgrims are said to have had nearly sixty acres of ground well planted with corn, and many gardens filled with fruits and vegetables. However, the crop was light, mainly because the colonists had been too weak, from lack of food, properly to attend to it. A famine would have followed for the third time had not a vessel arrived from England, in August, bringing provisions sufficient for the winter.

For several years the Pilgrims were compelled to live partly upon wild game and fish. One summer their main support was obtained by the use of the only boat that remained, with which they caught large quantities of bass. They also obtained clams when they could not get fish, used ground-nuts in place of bread, and caught many wild fowl in the creeks and marshes.

The colonists had no milk, butter, nor cheese for the first three years in Plymouth. There were no domestic animals in New England until, in the spring of 1623, a vessel arrived bringing the first cows. In time beef and veal were added to the list of foods, and soon other domestic animals were brought over. By the middle of the fourth summer the village of New Plymouth was reported to have nearly two hundred inhabitants, with some cattle and goats, and many swine and poultry.

The tools used by the early colonists were, like their houses and furniture, of the rudest manufacture. Agriculture, such as exists in the United States to-day, was entirely unknown two centuries ago. The plow was little used and the few plows among the colonists were inconvenient, heavy tools. The important planting and cultivating implement used by the farmers was the hoe.

The village or plantation blacksmith made the tools for the farmers, and they were rudely formed and shaped. In harvest time the hoe was again called into use, as well as the roughly constructed scythes and pruninghooks. The muscle-developing flail separated the grain from the straw, and the miller ground it into meal, or flour, taking "toll" for his pay—that is, a fixed fraction of the product.

How the system of agriculture has changed during these two centuries, or rather during the last century, for few of the improvements are yet a hundred years old! As in the methods of producing heat and light, inventions have done wonders in providing us with a greater amount and a larger variety of food at a reduced cost. Formerly all farm-work was done by the use of great muscular power. Only a strong man can wield the hoe for hours at a time. To walk behind a plow, guiding the horse and holding the plow in place, is no light task. To swing a scythe from early morning until late in the day severely taxes the strength. To thresh grain upon the barn floor with a flail day after day needs much physical endurance. The labor of many men was required to manage even a comparatively small farm. To-day all these conditions are changed.

At the present time "the most desirable farm-hand is the man with the cunning brain who can get the most work out of a machine without breaking it. The farm laborer finds himself advanced to the ranks of skilled labor. The man who plows uses his muscle only in guiding the machine. The man who operates the harrow has half a dozen levers to lighten his labor. The sower walks leisurely behind a drill and works brakes. The reaper needs a quick brain and a quick hand—not necessarily a strong arm nor a powerful back. The threshers are merely assistants to a machine. The men who heave the wheat into the bins only press buttons."