shores were the molluscs, and especially the oyster and the clam. The rivers, particularly of the Mississippi Basin, supplied fresh-water "clams" (Unios), and the saline and alkaline lakes of the arid region, inclusive of Mexico, teemed with the larvæ of insects, which were utilized for food. In the Atlantic and Mississippi region, south of the Great Lakes and extending to Central America, lived the wild turkey; the forests of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, the vast prairies, and the no less extensive sage-brush plains to the westward were inhabited by various species of grouse; the land east of the Pacific mountains, from the Gulf of Mexico far northward, was darkened by immense flights of pigeons; the water from the far south to the far north, throughout the breadth of the continent, were visited by large numbers of swans, geese, ducks, and other water birds. In a conspicuous way the feathered hosts, valuable for food, were migratory, thus again introducing a variable quantity into the lives of the aborigines.
The vegetable food of the Indian tribes that did not practise horticulture varied from locality to locality, and in the temperate and more northern regions fluctuated through a wide range with seasonal changes. Berries were abundant in certain regions and at certain seasons. The raspberry, blackberry, huckleberry, strawberry, etc., of many varieties, grew wild in the eastern Mississippi and Atlantic coast regions. The huckleberry extended from the northern Atlantic coast regions westward across the continent on the southern border of the subarctic forest, and reached central Alaska. On the coast of British Columbia and Alaska to Mount St. Elias, salmon-berries, wild currants, huckleberries, and strawberries flourished with marvellous luxuriance and of large size. Wild cherries were abundant on the Atlantic coast and extended to the Pacific mountains. Certain small plums of value for food occurred widely in what is now the United States. The papaw and persimmon thrived in the southern portion of the Atlantic coast region. The fruits of the cacti yielded refreshment in the southwestern States and in Mexico. Throughout all the hardwood forests of the Mississippi Valley and the region south of the St. Lawrence
a large variety of nut-bearing trees, such as the walnut, hickory, chestnut, beechnut, oak, etc., were in great abundance and furnished a large annual food supply. In the northern portion of this region grew the maple, the saccharine sap of which was utilized by the Indians for making sugar. In the Pacific mountains south of Canada grew the piñon, perhaps of all the trees of the continent the species that yielded the greatest food supply to the Indians. In this same region, particularly to the northward, grew the small lily-like plant having a blue flower, known as the camass, the bulbs of which are highly nutritious. Both the piñon and the camass are largely utilized even at the present day for food by the Indians. In Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies a large number of tropical fruits, bulbs, nuts, etc., abound, which are suitable for food, and, as we have more or less direct evidence, were utilized by the Indians of that region in prehistoric times. The period of harvest at the south is less sharply defined than in temperate latitudes and the natural food supply subject to less seasonal fluctuations.
The Indians so long as they did not engage in agriculture—there being an absence of anything that could be termed commerce, and even the transfer of food and other supplies by barter being restricted—were obliged to move from place to place, in order to avail themselves of the abundance furnished in certain localities and at certain seasons. This is well illustrated at the present day. With the coming of the salmon in the rivers of the northwest Pacific coast region the Indian feasts by the river-side; when the berries ripen in the valleys of the Cascade Mountains he is there, together with the bears, to profit by the bounties of nature; in Nevada he still makes journeys to the piñon groves in October; and in the subarctic forest he accompanies the migration of the caribou. In former days he followed the movements of the herds of bison on the Great plateaus. In these and many other ways the food supply of the Indian tended to establish nomadic customs, and as each source of fuel and other supplies demanded different methods of capturing animals or different utensils for gathering
seeds, etc., variations in culture development was a necessary result. The duty of replenishing the general stores was shared by all, but there was no definite organization for this purpose, and certainly nothing worth the name of business management. As the adage is, "What is every one's business is no one's business," and for this reason the Indian, as a rule, failed to lay aside a sufficient supply of food for winter use, and in consequence frequently went hungry and not infrequently died of starvation.
The scarcity of the spontaneous food supply at certain seasons or during exceptional years, and the recurrence of cold or rainy seasons, necessitating shelter, would naturally lead the Indian to develop in two important directions, namely, agriculture and architecture. As is well known, promising advances had been made in each of these arts, when indigenous development was checked and to a great extent killed by the appearance on the scene and subsequent encroachments of peoples from over the sea.
Horticulture.—Concerning the art of cultivating plants for food, clothing, utensils, etc., practised by the Indians before the coming of Europeans, it is difficult to obtain accurate information. The writings of Spanish and other explorers who first visited various tribes have been diligently searched in this connection by students of American history, and although much that is instructive has been discovered, many questions remain unanswered.
The principal regions where cultivation of the soil was practised in pre-Columbian times are situated in the United States south of the St. Lawrence and east of the Mississippi Valley, and inclusive of the lands bordering the Great Lakes on the south; also much of New Mexico, Arizona, Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies. In the eastern portion of what is now the United States localities naturally devoid of trees were cultivated by the Indians, and partial clearings were made in the vast forest by deadening the trees, probably by girdling or cutting the bark entirely around their trunks with stone axes, and leaving them standing. A similar process was employed by white settlers in later years, and is practised even at the present day. In these
partial clearings, from which the underbrush was no doubt burned, gardens of maize, melons, pumpkins, beans, gourds, sunflowers, potatoes, tobacco, and perhaps other plants were grown without irrigation. Garden-beds, as they are termed, are still to be seen in the forests of Michigan, which, as indicated by the trees growing on them, are older than the time white men began the cultivation of the soil of that region. In the arid southwestern portion of the continent and in Central America gardens were cultivated with the aid of irrigation, and what has been described as a high degree of skill in horticulture attained. The chief products of these gardens were maize, cotton, tobacco, beans, melons, cacao, bananas, and the red pepper. Possibly vanilla, tomatoes, and pumpkins were also grown. The aloe was extensively utilized in the south, but whether definitely cultivated or not seems uncertain.
The cultivation of fruit-trees other than the cacao, which furnishes the seeds from which chocolate is made, does not seem to have been carried on, although certain writers imply that native trees were tended and given greater facility for growth by removing adjacent plants. It is stated by some authors that in the region to the eastward of the Mississippi the Chickasaw plum is now found growing in clearings that were abandoned by the Indians and not elsewhere, and the inference is that it was formerly cultivated. Asa Gray mentions, however, that this species is probably not indigenous.