The ears have 8, 10, 12, 14 rows of grain, the more rows, the better is the grain; fome fay there has been 18 rows, but none under 8 rows.

Indian corn, does not weigh fo heavy as New-England wheat; their Indian corn at a medium is in weight 45 lb. their wheat 55 lb. per bufhel. The Virginia Indian corn is white and flat, yielding a better or whiter meal; the New-England corn is of a pale yellow, fmaller but thicker, and anfwers better in fatning of beeves, hogs, and other stock; Virginia corn is planted at greater distances, being of greater growth, and is all white; in New-England and Canada it is generally of a pale yellow, does not bear fo many ears as that of Virginia, it is of a leffer habit and quicker growth. The Indian corn of New-England at a medium produces 25 bufhels per acre, and ripens in a fhorter time; || (this a providence in nature, because their hot seasons are fhorter) the Virginia feed in New-England does not ripen into grain, as requiring a longer growth than the New-England feafons do allow. The Weft-India or fugar islands have per ann. two crops of Indian corn planted May and September in our continent we have only one crop planted in May. Capt. Hill of Douglafs by way of experiment planted Indian corn, middle of June, it was ripe middle of Auguft in a hot feafon. End of April they begin to plow; Indian corn harvest is beginning of October; when it begins to be in the ear, rain or drizle occafions a-fmut.

The phaseolus; which we call Indian beans or French beans, because the French from the Canada Indians were the firft in propagating them. It is the pha

feolus

Thus in Lapland and the northern parts of Sweden, barley from fowing ripens two weeks fooner than at Stockholm; and in NewEngland, Indian corn ripens in a fewer days from planting or sowing than in Virginia.

When English peafe (pifum majus fiore fructu albo. C. B. P.) fell at three, thefe Indian beans fell in proportion at two; they are

more

feolus Indicus fructu tumidiore minore niveas et verficolor. Morifon, tab. 4. fect. 2. They are generally white, and there is an indefinite number of fimple colours and variegations or marblings.

In New-England (fome parts of Connecticut excepted) the general subsistence of the poorer people (which contributes much towards their endemial pforick disorders) is falt pork and Indian beans, with bread of Indian corn meal, and pottage of this meal with milk for breakfast and fupper.

For the varieties of phafeolus called Indian beans, calavances and bonavist, see vol. I. p. 122, and the fections further fouth.

Connecticut wheat is full of cockle †. 20 bushels per acre is a good crop. It is faid, in Canada they fow no winter grain. New-England wheat is fubject to blaft; fome think that it proceeds from the farina fecundans of adjacent barberry bushes. +

Our best wheat is from Virginia and Maryland, next best is from Pensylvania, 55 lb. to 60 lb. per bufhel, and casts whiter than the English wheat; the further north the flour cafts the darker; Nova-Scotia wheat cafts almost as dark at rye. Some years fince in a scarcity of wheat in New-England, fome was imported from England; from the long weftward paffages it became mufty, cast dark, and did not answer.

In New-England the allowance to a baker of ship

more colicky than peafe: the tribe of the phaseolus is very large; fome years fince, Peter Ccelart in Holland cultivated above 100 diftinct fpecies. The cow itch, as we pronounce it, is the cow-hege of Zura in the Eaft-Indies: phafeolus filiquis hirfutis, pilis pungentibus. + Lychnis fegetum major. C. B. P.

Barberis latifimo folio Canadenfis. H. R. P. it is plenty all over North-America, it is of a larger habit than that of Europe, is 10 to 12 feet high; it is ufed as hedges, but fpreads too much into fuckers. There is a law in Connecticut, p. 13. for destroying these bufhes, they are thought to be very hurtful by occafioning, or at leaft increafing the blaiting of English grain."

66

bifcuit

biscuit is 3 bufhels and quarter wheat for 112 lb. wt. of bifcuit, befides-per ct. wt. for baking.

of

Herrings have formerly been taken notice of.

In New-England fome oxen of 18 ct. wt. and hogs 25 fcore have been killed; Connecticut falt pork is the best of America; they finifh the fatning of their hogs with Indian meal.

In New-England their barley is a hungry lean grain, and affords no good malt liquor; moloffes is the prin cipal ingredient in all their buvrage. Their barley of four rows called French barley is not fo good as that of two rows called English barley. Their oats are lean, chaffy, and of a dark colour.

In New-England they fow their winter grain 3d and 4th weeks of Auguft.

In New-England, after gathering in their common grain, flax, &c. the firft natural appearance of indigenous plants is panicum non criftatum fpica multiplici, ambrofia, and virga aurea annua Virginiana Zanoni. Near Boston and other great towns, fome field plants which accidentally have been imported from Europe, spread much, and are a great nusance in paftures, fuch as ranunculus pratenfis repens hirfutus, C. B. P. Butter cups, bellis major. I. B. the greater wild white daisy, dens leonis. Ger. dandelyon, &c. at prefent they have spread inland from Bofton, about 30 miles.

Great-Britain and New-England, though differing a-.. bout 10d. in lat. feem to be of the fame temperature: New-England is somewhat colder in winter and warmer? in fummer, from the vaft land continent N. W. of it,

Upon the coaft of Great-Britain, the herring fishery begins a little before midfummer; they emerge or make their first appearance off Crane-head in Braffa-Sound N. Lat. 61 and half d. from thence gradually proceed fouth to Dogger-Bank, where that fummer fishery. ends: the winter fifhery begins off Yarmouth, and continues about 79 days, they proceed fouthward, and are caught in plenty about the... Thames mouth until the latter end of January.

which receives and communicates continually (therefore with intenfenefs,) by the lambent air these different temperatures of the feafons. N. W. is our general or natural wind. 1. After ftorms or perturbations of our ambient air from any point of the compafs, being expended, the wind fettles N. W. 2. All our fpring and fummer sea breezes, return to the N. W. 3. In middle of February 1731-2, called the cold Tuesday (the most intense insupportable cold I ever felt) the wind was at N. W. It is not eafily accounted for, that in different countries though the temperature of the air be nearly the fame, the natural growth of plants differs much, v. g. the bellis minor or leffer wild daisy, a native of GreatBritain, abound there from 50 d. to 60 d. of lat. but will not grow in North-America. All of the cucurbitaceous kind, pompions, &c. (Mr. H-y an ecclefiaftical mountebank, in his farces called oratory, calls the NewEngland people pompionites) by cultivation without the force of hot beds grow well, but in Great-Britain requires force.

In a new country there may be a tax upon improved lands, as a fund for premiums to encourage the clearing and planting of wilderness lands for the firft year; the fecond and third year are the next profitable for produce, and requires no bounty, and afterwards, especially in NewEngland, it ought to be smoothed and lay for pafturage. In New-England, two acres cow-pen land may raise about a tun of hemp, but is foon exhausted.

Locufts, called grafhoppers, and a fpecies of caterpillars, fome years are very noxious to our pastures; in the fummer 1749, a small locuft, with a drought destroyed our herbage; they generally prevail June and July.

Lands in New-England which yield at a medium 20 ct. wt. of hay are the best, if 40 ct. wt. the hay is rank and four; fome fresh meadows, if mowed more than once, yield greater quantities. In mowing lands an uniformity of grafs ought to be attended to and endeavoured, because fome graffes ripen foon, and are upon

the decline before others attain a perfection for mowing. End of June and beginning of July the height of upland or English hay harveft is over; third and fourth weeks of Auguft they mow their falt-meadow hay. Salt-hay is from falt or fpring tide marfhes; fresh hay is the natural growth of inland marshes; English or upland hay, is the herbage imported from Europe. + NewEngland crops or produce are very uncertain, for inftance of hay, in the fpring 1750, it fold for 41. New-England currency, in the fpring 1751, it fells for 15 s. per cf. wt. Two acres, if good, is a cowland.

Cyder is a confiderable produce for consumption and exportation; when distilled, it does not yield above one twelfth fpirit; end of Auguft they begin to make a mean fort of cyder from the windfalls.

Turneps fowed in any latitude thrive, even in Davis'sStraits or Weft-Greenland; our beft New-England turneps are from new lands N. E. from Boston.

Some remarks relating to the natural history of NewEngland.

The feafons from year to year are better determined by fome paffenger birds and fish, than by the bloffoming of trees, and flowering of fome inferior vegetables for instance, swallows conftantly arrive from the fouthward in the fecond week of April with a latitude of only two or three days; peaches fometimes bloffom beginning of April, in fome years not till beginning of May, a latitude of 30 days. Anno 1735, last day of December, 1ft and 2d of January, fell about 20 inches of light fnow, wind N. W. northerly, followed by a very hard froft, and peaches did not begin to bloffom

In hot countries they make no hay; it dries too quick, dry röts and turns to duft. In fome parts of North-America, the winters are too long and cold, and in other parts too hot for grafs, confequently can afford no quantity of provender for cattle, and will never be beef