Johann Reinhold Forster

“ The annual harvest, I am told, is always of such a nature, that it affords plenty of bread for the inhabitants, though it turns out to greater advantage in some years than it does in others. A venerable septuagenary Swede, called Aoke Helm, assured me, that in his time no absolutely barren crop had been met with, but that the people had always had pretty plentiful crops. It is likewise to be observed, that the people eat their bread of maize, rye, or wheat, quite pure and free from the inferior kinds of corn, and clear of husks, stalks, or other impurities. ”

“ In a word, the corn-fields, the meadows, the forests, the cattle, &c. are treated with equal carelessness; and the English nation, so well skilled in these branches of husbandry, is with difficulty found out here. We can hardly be more lavish of our woods in Sweden and Finland than they are here: their eyes are fixed upon the present gain, and they are blind to futurity. Every day their cattle are harassed by labour, and each generation decreases in goodness and size, by being kept short of food, as I have before mentioned. ”

“ Their places of abode are ponds, and bogs with stagnant water; they are never in any flowing water. When many of them croak together, they make an enormous noise. Their croak exactly resembles the roaring of an ox or bull, which is somewhat hoarse. They croak so loud, that two people talking by the side of a pond cannot understand each other. ”

“ Franklin told me, in the spring of the year 1750, that, by means of the premiums which have been settled for killing them in New England, they have been so extirpated, that they are very rarely seen, and in a few places only. But as, in the summer of the year 1749, an immense quantity of worms appeared on the meadows, which devoured the grass, and did great damage, the people have abated their enmity against the maize-thieves ”

“ I have had the following accounts given me of its way of living; it seldom appears in day-time, but at night it comes out of the hollow trees, on the banks of rivers. Sometimes it lives in the docks and bridges, at Philadelphia, where it is a cruel enemy to the rats. Sometimes it gets into the court-yards at night, and creeps into the chicken-house, through a small hole, where it kills all the poultry, and sucks their blood, but seldom eats one. ”

“ Thus we see the great disparity between the province of Pensylvania, and New Jersey, which are only divided by the river Delaware. In Pensylvania the soil consists of a mould mixed with sand and clay, and is very rich and fertile: and in the woods which are higher in the country, the ground is mountainous and stony. On the other hand, in the province of New Jersey, the soil is poor and dry, and not very fertile, some parts excepted. You can hardly find a stone in New Jersey, and much less mountains. In Pensylvania you scarce ever see a fir-tree, and in New Jersey are whole woods of it. ”

“ When a tree falls across the road, it is seldom cut off, to keep the road clear, but the people go round it. This they can easily do, since the ground is very even, and without stones; has no underwood or shrubs, and the trees on it stand much asunder. Hence the roads here have so many bendings.
The farms are most of them single, and you seldom meet with even two together, except in towns, or places which are intended for towns; therefore there are but few villages. Each farm has its corn-fields, its woods, its pastures and meadows. ”

“ There is hardly an old woman but can tell you three or four score of them, of which she is perfectly certain that they are as infallible and speedy in giving relief, as a month’s fasting, by bread and water, is to a burthensome paunch. ”

“ They are very bold; for when they are disturbed, they only go and settle in another part of the field. In that manner, they always go from one end of the field to the other, and do not leave it till they are quite satisfied. They fly in incredible swarms in autumn; and it can hardly be conceived whence such immense numbers of them should come. When they rise in the air they darken the sky, and make it look quite black. ”

“ All the yachts which ply between Albany and New York, belong to Albany. They go up and down the river Hudson, as long as it is open and free from ice. They bring from Albany boards or planks, and all sorts of timber, flour, pease, and furs, which they get from the Indians, or which are smuggled from the French. They come home almost empty, and only bring a few merchandizes with them, among which rum is the chief. This last is absolutely necessary to the inhabitants of Albany; they cheat the Indians in the fur trade with it ”

“ The meadows are poor, and what grass they have is bad. The pasture for cattle in the forests, consists of such plants as they do not like, and which they are compelled to eat by necessity; for it is difficult to find a single grass in great forests, where the trees stand far asunder, and where the soil is excellent. For this reason, the cattle are forced, during almost the whole winter and part of the summer, to live upon the young shoots and branches of trees, which sometimes have no leaves: therefore, the cows give very little milk, and decrease in size every generation. ”

“ As soon as the wild stags have the scent of a man, they make off. In winter the man fed the hind with corn and hay; but in summer it went out into the woods and meadows, seeking its own food, eating both grass and other plants: it was now kept in a meadow; it did chiefly eat clover, the leaves of hiccory, of the Andromeda paniculata, and the Geranium maculatum. It was likewise contented with the leaves of the common plantane, or Plantaga, grasses, and several other plants. The possessor of this hind sold stags to people in Philadelphia, who sent them as curiosities to other places. ”

“ This easy method of getting a rich crop has spoiled the English and other European inhabitants, and induced them to adopt the same method of agriculture which the Indians make use of; that is, to sow uncultivated grounds, as long as they will produce a crop without manuring, but to turn them into pastures as soon as they can bear no more, and to take in hand new spots of ground, covered since time immemorial with woods, which have been spared by the fire or the hatchet ever since the creation. ”

“ The country in general is low on both sides, consisting of low rocks, and stony fields, which are however covered with woods. It is so rocky, stony, and poor, that nobody can settle in it, or inhabit it, there being no spot of ground fit for a corn-field. The country continued to have the same appearance for the space of some miles, and we never perceived one settlement. At eleven o’clock this morning we came to a little island, which lies in the middle of the river, and is said to be half-way between New York and Albany. ”

“ The country till the fall is a plain, and only hilly about the fall itself. The wood is cleared in most places, and the ground cultivated, and interspersed with farm-houses.
The Cohoes Fall is one of the greatest in North America. It is in the river Mohawk, before it unites with the river Hudson. Above and below the fall, the sides and the bottom of the river consist of hard rock. The river is three hundred yards broad here. At the fall there is a rock crossways in the river, running every where equally high, and crossing in a strait line with the side which forms the fall. ”

“ Peach-trees very frequently die in a cold winter, and often all the peach-trees in a whole district are killed by a severe frost. It has been found repeatedly, with regard to these trees, that they can stand the frost much better on hills, than in vallies; insomuch, that when the trees in a valley were killed by frost, those on a hill were not hurt at all. They assured me that they had never observed that the black walnut-tree, the sassafras, and other trees, had been hurt in winter. ”

“ Next to the cedar-wood, oak and chesnut are reckoned best. Chesnut is commonly preferred, but it is not every where so plentiful as to be made into fences; in its stead they make use of several sorts of oak. In order to make inclosures, the people do not cut down the young trees, as is common with us, but they fell here and there thick trees, cut them in several places, leaving the pieces as long as it is necessary, and split them into poles of the usual thickness; a single tree affords a multitude of poles. ”

“ There are a great number of hares in this country, but they differ from our Swedish ones in their size, which is very small, and but little bigger than that of a rabbit; they keep almost the same grey colour both in summer and winter, which our Northern hares have in summer only; the tip of their ears is always grey, and not black; the tail is likewise grey on the upper side, at all seasons; they breed several times a year: in spring they lodge their young ones in hollow trees, and in summer, in the months of June and July, they breed in the grass. ”

“ I am acquainted with several people, who have on such an occasion run so hard as to be quite out of breath, in endeavouring to escape the snake, which moved with the swiftness of an arrow after them. If a person thus pursued can muster up courage enough to oppose the snake with a stick or any thing else, when it is either passed by him, or when he steps aside to avoid it, it will turn back again, and seek a refuge in its swiftness. ”

“ The horses went into the maize fields, and ate the dry leaves on the few stalks which remained. The sheep ran about the woods, and on the corn fields. The chickens perched on the trees of the gardens, at night; for they had no particular habitations. The hogs were likewise exposed to the roughness of the weather, within a small inclosure.
A small kind of birds, which the Swedes call Snow-bird, and the English Chuck-bird, came into the houses about this time. At other times, they sought their food along the roads. They are seldom seen, but when it snows. ”

“ They leaped about on the fields, and made a noise like that of our common house-crickets, so that it would be difficult to distinguish them by their chirping. They sometimes make so great a noise, that it causes pain in the ears, and even two people cannot understand each other. In such places where the rattle-snakes live, the field-crickets are very disagreeable, and in a manner dangerous, for their violent chirping prevents the warning, which that horrid snake gives with its rattle, from reaching the ear, and thus deprives one of the means of avoiding it. ”

“ A man can hardly have a greater desire of a thing, than the Indians have of brandy. I have heard them say, that to die by drinking brandy, was a [95] desirable and an honourable death; and indeed ’tis no very uncommon thing to kill themselves by drinking this liquor to excess.
The food of these Indians was very different from that of the inhabitants of the other parts of the world. Wheat, rye, barley, oats, and rice-groats, were quite unknown in America. ”

“ The nights are very dark here all the summer; and in winter, they are quite as dark, if not darker, than the winter nights in Sweden; for here is no kind of Aurora Borealis, and the stars give a very faint light. It is very remarkable if an Aurora Borealis appears once or twice a year. The winters here bring no snow, to make the nights clear, and to make travelling more safe and easy. The cold is, however, frequently as intense as in Old Sweden. The snow which falls lies only a few days, and always goes off with a great deal of wet. ”

“ It rivals the preceding one, in the beauty of its colour; yet though they are conspicuous in regard to the colours and shape of their flowers, they are no ways remarkable for smell, such as the Magnolia is; for they have little or no smell at all. So equally and justly does nature distribute her gifts; no part of the creation has them all, each has its own, and none is absolutely without a share of them.
May the 30th. The Moravian Brethren, who arrived in great numbers from Europe, at New York, in May, brought two converted Greenlanders with them. ”

“ They planted maize, and some species of beans and gourds; and at the same time it is certain, that a plantation of such vegetables as serve an Indian family during one year, take up no more ground than a farmer in our country takes to plant cabbage for his family upon; at least, a farmer’s cabbage and turnep ground, taken together, is always as extensive, if not more so, than the corn-fields and kitchen-gardens of an Indian family. Therefore, the Indians could hardly subsist for one month upon the produce of their gardens and fields. ”

“ Saratoga has been a fort built of wood by the English, to stop the attacks of the French Indians upon the English inhabitants in these parts, and to serve as a rampart to Albany. It is situated on a hill, on the east-side of the river Hudson, and is built of thick posts driven in to the ground, close to each other, in the manner of palisades, forming a square, the length of whose sides was within the reach of a musket-shot. At each corner are the houses of the officers, and within the palisades are the barracks, all of timber. ”

“ When a knob on a little tree is cut open, we commonly find a number of little worms in it, which are sometimes also common in the greater knobs. This shews the origin of the knobs in general. The tree is stung by insects, which lay their eggs under the bark, and from the eggs worms are afterwards hatched. They occasion an extravasation of the sap, which gradually condenses into a knob. Only the trees with annual deciduous leaves have these knobs, and among them chiefly the oak, of which again the black and Spanish oak have the greatest abundance of knobs. ”

“ To lessen their greediness of maize, some people dip the grains of that plant in a decoct of the root of the veratrum album, or white hellebore, (of which I shall speak in the sequel) and plant them afterwards. When the maize-thief eats a grain or two, which are so prepared, his head is disordered, and he falls down: this frightens his companions, and they dare not venture to the place again. But they repay themselves amply towards autumn, when the maize grows ripe; for at that time, [77] they are continually feasting. They assemble by thousands in the maize-fields, and live at discretion. ”

“ Tea is differently esteemed by different people; and I think we would be as well, and our purses much better, if we were both without tea and coffee. However, I must be impartial, and mention in praise of tea, that if it be useful, it must certainly be so in summer, on such journeys as mine, through a desart country, where one cannot carry wine or other liquors, and where the water is generally unfit for use, as being full of insects. ”

“ The bird or squirrel runs up and down along the tree continuing its plaintive song, and always comes nearer the snake, whose eyes are unalterably fixed upon it. It should seem as if these poor creatures endeavoured to escape the snake, by hopping or running up the tree; but there appears to be a power which withholds them: they are forced downwards, and each time that they turn back, they approach nearer their enemy, till they are at last forced to leap into its mouth, which stands wide open for that purpose. ”

“ Natural history, as all the other histories, depends not always upon the intrinsic degree of probability, but upon facts founded on the testimony of people of noted veracity.—Swallows are seldom seen sinking down into the water, Swallows have not such organs as frogs or lizards, which are torpid during winter, ergo, Swallows live not, and cannot live, under water.—This way of arguing, I believe, would carry us, in a great many cases, too far ”