The common Privet, or Ligustrum vulgare, is made use of in many places, as a hedge round corn-fields and gardens, and on my whole voyage, I did not see that any other trees were made use of for this purpose, though the Englishmen here, well know that the hawthorn makes a much better [[166]]hedge. The privet hedges grow very thick and close, but having no spines, the hogs, and even other animals break easily through them; and when they have once made a hole, it requires a long while before it grows up again. But when the hedges consist of spinose bushes, the cattle will hardly attempt to get through them.
About noon I came through Chester, a little market-town which lies on the Delaware. A rivulet coming down out of the country, passes through this place, and discharges itself into the Delaware. There is a bridge over it. The houses stand dispersed. Most of them are built of stone, and two or three stories high; some are however made of wood. In the town is a church, and a market-place.
Wheat was now sown every where. In some places it was already green, having been sown four weeks before. The wheat fields were made in the English manner, having no ditches in them, but numerous furrows for draining the water, at the distance of four or six foot from one another. Great stumps of the trees which had been cut down, are every where seen on the fields, and this shews that the country has been but lately cultivated.
The roots of the trees do not go deep [[167]]into the ground, but spread horizontally. I had opportunities of observing this in several places where the trees were dug up; for I seldom saw one, whose roots went above a foot deep into the ground, though it was a loose soil.
About two English miles behind Chester, I passed by an iron forge, which was to the right hand by the road side. It belonged to two brothers, as I was told. The ore however is not dug here, but thirty or forty miles from hence, where it is first melted in the oven, and then carried to this place. The bellows were made of leather, and both they and the hammers, and even the hearth, but small in proportion to ours. All the machines were worked by water. The iron was wrought into bars.
To day I remarked, as I have since frequently seen on my travels in this country, that horses are very greedy of apples. When they are let into an orchard to feed upon the grass, if there are any apples on the ground, they frequently leave the fresh green grass, and eat the apples, which, however, are not reckoned a good food for them; and besides that, it is too expensive.
The red Maple, or Acer rubrum is plentiful in these places. Its proper situations [[168]]are chiefly swampy, wet places, in which the alder commonly is its companion. Out of its wood they make plates, spinning-wheels, rolls, feet for chairs and beds, and all sorts of work. With the bark, they dye both worsted and linnen, giving it a dark blue colour. For that purpose it is first boiled in water; and some copperas, such as the hat-makers and shoe-makers commonly make use of, is added, before the stuff (which is to be dyed) is put into the boiler. This bark likewise affords a good black ink. When the tree is felled early in spring, a sweet juice runs out of it, like that which runs out of our birches. This juice they do not make any use of here, but in Canada, they make both treacle and sugar of it. Here is a variety of this tree which they call the curled Maple, the wood being as it were marbled within; it is much used in all kinds of joiner’s work, and the utensils made of this wood, are preferable to those made of any other sort of wood in the country, and are much dearer than those made of the wood of the wild cherry trees (Prunus Virginiana) or of black walnut trees. But the most valuable utensils were those made of curled black walnut, for that is an excessive scarce kind of wood. The curled maple was likewise very uncommon, [[169]]and you frequently find trees, whose outsides are marbled, but their inside not. The tree is therefore cut very deep before it is felled, to see whether it has veins in every part.
In the evening I reached Philadelphia.
October the 7th. In the morning we crossed the Delaware in a boat to the other side which belongs to New Jersey, each person paying fourpence for his passage. The country here is very different from that in Pensylvania; for here the ground is almost mere sand, but in the other province it is mixed with a good deal of clay, and this makes the ground pretty rich. The discoveries which I made to day of insects and plants, I intend to mention in another work.
A soil like this in New Jersey, one might be led to think, could produce nothing because it is so dry and poor. Yet the maize which is planted on it grows extremely well, and we saw many fields filled with it. The earth is of that kind in which tobacco commonly succeeds, but it is not near so rich. The stalks of maize are commonly eight feet high, more or less, and are full of leaves. The maize is planted as usual in rows, in little squares, so that there is a space of five feet and six [[170]]inches between each square, both in length and breadth; on each of these little hills three or four stalks come up, which were not yet cut for the cattle; each stalk again has from one to four ears, which are large and full of corn. A sandy ground could never have been better employed. In some places the ground between the maize is ploughed, and rye sown in it, so that when the maize is cut, the rye remains upon the field.