Note 190 — {41} Fifthly, Of Plants.

See also the Voyages, p. 73. “It is almost incredible,” says Higginson (New-England’s Plantation, l. c., p. 118), “what great gaine some of our English planters have had by our Indian corne. Credible persons have assured me,—and the partie himselfe avouched the truth of it to me,—that, of the setting of thirteen gallons of corne, hee hath had encrease of it 52 hogsheads; every hogshead holding seven bushels, of London measure: and every bushell was by him sold and trusted to the Indians for so much beaver as was worth 18 shillings. And so, of this 13 gallons of corne, which was worth 6 shillings 8 pence, he made about 327 pounds of it the yeere following, as by reckoning will appeare; where you may see how God blessed husbandry in this land. There is not such greate and plentifull eares of corne, I suppose, any where else to bee found but in this countrey; because, also of varietie of colours,—as red, blew, and yellow, &c.: and of one corne there springeth four or five hundred.” Roger Williams (Key, l. c., pp. 208, 221) has some interesting particulars of the Indian use of their corn. According to him, the Indian msickquatash (that is succotash, as we call it now) was “boiled corn whole,” and nawsaump, a kind of meal pottage unparched. From this the English call their samp; which is the Indian corn beaten and boiled, and eaten, hot or cold; with milk or butter,—which are mercies beyond the natives’ plain water, and which is a dish exceeding wholesome for the English bodies.