The wood can be made very smooth, because its veins are extremely fine: but it is not hard; you can carve letters on it with a knife, which will seem to be engraved. [[162]]Mr. Lewis Evans told me, from his own experience, that no wood in this country was more fit for making moulds for casting brass in, than this. I enquired of Mr. Bartram, “Whether he had found the rosin on this tree, which is so much praised in physic.” He told me, “That a very odoriferous rosin always flows out of any cut or wound, which is made in the tree; but that the quantity here was too inconsiderable to recompense the labour of collecting it.” This odoriferous rosin or gum first gave rise to the English name. The further you go to the South, the greater quantity of gum does the tree yield, so that it is easy to collect it. Mr. Bartram was of opinion, that this tree was properly calculated for the climate of Carolina, and that it was brought by several ways so far North as New York. In the southern countries the heat of the Sun fills the tree with gum, but in the northern ones it does not.
May the 2d. This morning I travelled down to Salem, in order to see the country.
The Sassafras-tree stood single in the woods, and along the fences, round the fields: it was now distinguishable at a distance for its fine flowers, which being now [[163]]quite open, made it look quite yellow. The leaves were not yet come out.
In some meadows the grass was already grown up pretty high: but it is to be observed, that these meadows were marshy, and that no cattle had been on them this year. These meadows are mown twice a year, viz. in May, and the end of August, or beginning of August, old style. I saw some meadows of this kind to-day, in which I saw grass which was now almost fit to be mown; and many meadows in Sweden have not such grass at the proper time of mowing, as these had now; these meadows lay in marshes and vallies, where the Sun had very great power: the grass consisted merely of Cyperus-grass or Carex.
The wild Prune-trees were now every where in flower; they grow here and there in the woods, but commonly near marshes and in wet ground; they are distinguishable by their white flowers: the fruit when ripe is eatable.
The Cornus Florida, or Dogwood, grows in the forests, on hills, on plains, in vallies, in marshes, and near rivulets. I cannot therefore say, which is its native soil; however, it seems that in a low but not a wet soil it succeeds best; it was now adorned with its great snowy Involucra, [[164]]which render it conspicuous even at a distance. At this time it is a pleasure to travel through the woods, so much are they beautified by the blossoms of this tree. The flowers which are within the Involucra began to open to-day. The tree does not grow to any considerable height or thickness, but is about the size of our Mountain Ash (Sorbus aucuparia). There are three species of this tree in the woods; one with great white Involucra, another with small white ones, and a third with reddish ones.
The woods were now full of birds: I saw the lesser species every where hopping on the ground, or creeping in bushes, without any great degree of shiness; it is therefore very easy for all kinds of snakes to approach and bite them. I believe that the rattlesnake has nothing to do but to ly still, and without waiting long, some little bird or other will pass by or run directly upon her, giving her an opportunity of catching it, without any enchantment.
Salem is a little trading town, situated at some distance from the river Delaware. The houses do not stand far asunder, and are partly stone, and partly wood. A rivulet passes by the town, and falls into the Delaware. The inhabitants live by their several trades, as well as they can. In the [[165]]neighbourhood of Salem are some very low and swampy meadows; and therefore it is reckoned a very unwholesome place. Experience has shewn, that those who came hither from other places to settle, got a very pale and sickly look, though they arrived in perfect health, and with a very lively colour. The town is very easily distinguished about this time, by the disagreeable stench which arises from the swamps. The vapours of the putrid water are carried to those inhabitants which live next to the marshes; and enter the body along with the air, and through the pores, and thus are hurtful to health. At the end of every summer, the intermitting fevers are very frequent. I knew a young couple, who came along with me from England to America: soon after their arrival at Philadelphia, they went to Salem, in perfect health; but a few weeks after they fell sick, and before the winter was half over they were both dead.
Many of the inhabitants plant Saffron; but it is not so good and so strong as the English and French Saffron. Perhaps it grows better by being laid up for some years, as tobacco does.
The Gossypium herbaceum, or Cotton plant, is an annual plant; and several of the inhabitants of Salem had began to sow it. [[166]]Some had the seeds from Carolina, where they have great plantations of cotton; but others got it out of some cotton which they had bought. They said, it was difficult, at first, to get ripe seeds from the plants which were sown here; for the summer in Carolina, from whence their first seed came, is both longer and hotter than it is here. But after the plants have been more used to the climate, and hastened more than they were formerly, the seeds are ripe in due time.