The History of Virginia, in Four Parts

by Robert Beverley

The year before the massacre, Anno 1622, which destroyed so many good projects for Virginia, some French vignerons were sent thither to make an experiment of their vines. These people were so in love with the country, that the character they then gave of it in their letters to the company in England, was very much to its advantage, namely: "That it far excelled their own country of Languedoc, the vines growing in great abundance and variety all over the land; that some of the grapes were of that unusual bigness, that they did not believe them to be grapes, until by opening them they had seen their kernels; that they had planted the cuttings of their vines at Michaelmas, and had grapes from those very cuttings the spring following. Adding in the conclusion, that they had not heard of the like in any other country." Neither was this out of the way, for I have made the same experiment, both of their natural vine and of the plants sent thither from England.

The copies of the letters, here quoted, to the company in England, are still to be seen; and Purchase, in his fourth volume of pilgrims, has very justly quoted some of them.

§ 16. The honey and sugar trees are likewise spontaneous near the heads of the rivers. The honey tree bears a thick swelling pod, full of honey, appearing at a distance like the bending pod of a bean or pea; it is very like the carob tree in the herbals. The sugar tree yields a kind of sap or juice, which by boiling is made into sugar. This juice is drawn out by wounding the trunk of the tree, and placing a receiver under the wound. It is said that the Indians make one pound of sugar out of eight pounds of the liquor. Some of this sugar I examined very carefully. It was bright and moist, with a large, full grain, the sweetness of it being like that of good muscovado.

Though this discovery has not been made by the English above 28 or thirty years, yet it has been known among the Indians before the English settled there. It was found out by the English after this manner: The soldiers which were kept on the land frontiers to clear them of the Indians, taking their range through a piece of low ground about forty miles above the then inhabited parts of Potomac river, and resting themselves in the woods of those low grounds, observed an inspissate juice, like molasses, distilling from the tree. The heat of the sun had candied some of this juice, which gave the men a curiosity to taste it. They found it sweet, and by this process of nature learned to improve it into sugar. But the Christian inhabitants are now settled where many of these trees grow, but it hath not yet been tried, whether for quantity or quality it may be worth while to cultivate this discovery.

Thus the Canada Indians make sugar of the sap of a tree. And Peter Martyr mentions a tree that yields the like sap, but without any description. The eleomeli of the ancients, a sweet juice like honey, is said to be got by wounding the olive tree; and the East Indians extract a sort of sugar, they call jagra, from the juice, or potable liquor, that flows from the coco tree. The whole process of boiling, graining and refining of which, is accurately set down by the authors of Hortus Malabaricus.

§ 17. At the mouth of their rivers, and all along upon the sea and bay, and near many of their creeks and swamps, grows the myrtle, bearing a berry, of which they make a hard brittle wax, of a curious green color, which by refining becomes almost transparent. Of this they make candles, which are never greasy to the touch, nor melt with lying in the hottest weather; neither does the snuff of these ever offend the smell like that of a tallow candle; but instead of being disagreeable, if an accident put a candle out, it yields a pleasant fragrancy to all that are in the room; insomuch, that nice people often put them out, on purpose to have the incense of the expiring snuff.

The melting of these berries is said to have been first found out by a surgeon in New England, who performed wonderful things, with a salve made of them. This discovery is very modern, notwithstanding these countries have been so long settled.

The method of managing these berries is by boiling them in water, till they come to be entirely dissolved, except the stone or seed in the middle, which amounts in quantity to about half the bulk of the berry; the biggest of which is something less than a corn of pepper.

There are also in the plains, and rich low grounds of the freshes, abundance of hops, which yield their product without any labor of the husbandman, in weeding, hilling or poling.

§ 18. All over the country is interspersed here and there a surprising variety of curious plants and flowers. They have a sort of briar, growing something like the sarsaparilla. The berry of this is as big as a pea, and as round, the seed being of a bright crimson color. It is very hard, and finely polished by nature, so that it might be put to diverse ornamental uses, as necklaces are, &c.