cold as they would be without it; and that mountains covered with trees are the coldest of all places, but without trees are not so cold as forests or plains. I am clearly of opinion, therefore, that not the lakes or rivers, but the infinite quantity of timber in the immense regions of North-America, whether upon mountains or not, is the grand cause of the coldness of the winters in Connecticut. I will add, moreover, in support of my argument, that beasts, in the coldest weather, are observed to quit the woods and woody mountains for lakes, rivers, and cultivated open country; and that Connecticut, having lost most of its timber, is by no means so intensely cold in winter as it was forty years ago, and as Susquehanna is at present, a wilderness in the same latitude. The snow and ice commonly cover the country, without rains, from Christmas to March; then rains, attended with boisterous winds from the north and east, melt the snow, which converting brooks into rivers and rivers into seas, in four or five days the ice is rent from its groaning banks in such mighty sheets as it shakes the earth for twenty miles. Nature being thus in convulsions, the winds turn her fit into madness, by driving ice upon ice, whose thunders cease not till the ocean swallows up the whole.
It is but natural to suppose that the summers in Connecticut are much hotter than those in England; nevertheless, from the clearness and serenity of the sky, the climate is healthy both to natives and foreigners of all nations. Connecticut is a hospital for invalids of the Islands and southern provinces; but, in general, they no sooner amend their own constitution, than the pestilence, which rages in that province, drives
them to Rhode-Island or New-York, where fanaticism is lost in irreligion.
The people of Connecticut reckon time almost five hours later than the English. The longest day consists of fifteen hours, the shortest of nine. The brightness of the sun, moon, and stars, together with the reverberated rays on ice, snow, water, trees, mountains, pebbles, and flat stones, dazzle and weaken the eyes of the New-Englanders to such a degree, that, in general, they are obliged to use glasses before they are fifty years of age. For the most part, also, they have bad teeth, which has been ascribed to the extreme heats and colds of summer and winter; but, as the Indians and negroes in the same climate have remarkably good teeth, it may be said, with great reason, that the many indulgences of the one, and the temperance of the other, and not the heats and colds, are the causes of good and bad teeth.
Soil and Produce.—The soil is various in different parts of the province: in some black, in others brown, and elsewhere red, but all rich. Some plains are sandy and of a whitish colour, and they produce rye, beans, and Indian-corn. The meadows and lowlands are excellent pasturage, and yield great crops of hay. The hills and uplands have a rich, deep soil, but are subject to droughts in July and August, which in many places are relieved by water drawn from rivers, ponds, and brooks, in troughs and ditches. The crops of European grain are always good, when the snow, which in general is the only manure, covers the earth from December to March. One acre generally yields from twenty to thirty bushels of wheat; of Indian-corn, from forty to sixty
bushels on even land, and from thirty to forty on hilly land; but it is to be observed, that one bushel of it raised on hilly land weighs thirteen pounds more than a bushel raised on river land. All European grains flourish here, and the grass is as thick, and much longer than in England. Maize, or Indian-corn, is planted in hillocks three feet apart, five kernels and two pumpkin-seeds in a hillock, and between the hills are planted ten beans in a hillock; so that, if the season prove favourable, the beans and the pumpkins are worth as much as the corn. If from an acre the crop of corn be twenty bushels, add the beans and pumpkins, and it will be equal to sixty bushels; so, if there be sixty bushels of corn, a proportionate growth of beans and pumpkins will render the product equal to one hundred and eighty bushels. One man plants an acre in a day; in three days he hoes the same three times; and six days more suffice for plowing and gathering the crop. For these ten days’ work the price is thirty shillings; and, allowing ten shillings for the use of the land, the whole expense is two pounds, and no more, while the corn is worth two shillings a bushel. The gain is seldom less than 300, and often 600 per cent. It is thus that the poor man becomes rich in a few years, if prudent and industrious.
The limits of Connecticut are reckoned to comprise 5,000,000 acres, half of which is supposed to be swallowed up in rivers, ponds, creeks, and roads. The inhabitants are estimated at 200,000, so that there remains but twelve and a half acres for each individual. Let it now be considered that the people buy no provisions from other provinces, but, on the contrary, export
full as much as they consume, and it will appear that each person has in fact only six and a quarter acres for his own support, two of which must be set apart for the growth of wood, the only fuel of the colony. Should I, then, not be justified in saying that Connecticut is as good and flourishing land as any part of Great Britain?
The face of the country resembles Devonshire, Gloucestershire, Surrey, and Kent. The farmers divide their lands into four, five, and ten acres, with stone walls or post and rails. The roads from north to south are generally level and good; from east to west hilly, and bad for carriages. The various fruits are in greater perfection than in England. The peach and apple are more luscious, beautiful, and large; 1000 peaches are produced from one tree; five or six barrels of cider from one apple tree. Cider is the common drink at table. The inhabitants have a method of purifying cider by frost and separating the watery part from the spirit, which, being secured in proper vessels, and colored by Indian-corn, becomes in three months so much like Madeira wine, that Europeans drink it without perceiving the difference. They make peachy and perry, grape, cherry, and currant wines, and good beer of pumpkin, molasses, bran of wheat, spruce, and malt. The spruce is the leaves and limbs of the fir tree; their malt is made of maize, barley, oats, rye, chets, and wheat. The pumpkin, or pompion, is one of the greatest blessings, and held very sacred in New-England. It is a native of America. From one seed often grow forty pumpkins, each weighing from forty to sixty pounds, and, when ripe, of the colour of a marigold.
Each pumpkin contains about 500 seeds, which, being boiled to a jelly, is the Indian infallible cure for the strangury. Of its meat are made beer, bread, custards, sauce, molasses, vinegar, and, on thanksgiving days, pies, as a substitute for what the Blue Laws brand as anti-christian minced pies. Its skin, or shell, serves as a cap to cut the hair by, (as already mentioned,) and very useful lanthorns. There are no trees, grain, or fruits, growing in England but what will grow in Connecticut. The English oak has been thought much superior to the American. Whatever policy may be in this opinion, I will venture to say there is no truth in it in respect to the white oak in Connecticut, which is tough, close, hard, and elastic as the whalebone dried. The red, black, and chestnut oak are, indeed, much inferior to the white oak. The ash, elm, beech, chestnut, walnut, hazel, sassafras, sumach, maple, and butternut, are the chief timber trees of this province, and grow to an amazing bulk. The last is a native of America, and takes its name from a nut it produces, of the shape and size of a pullet’s egg, which contains a meat much larger than an English walnut, in taste like fresh butter; it also makes an excellent pickle. The butternut furnishes fine but tender boards; and its bark dyes black, and cures cutaneous disorders. In February this tree yields a sap, of which are made sugar, molasses, and vinegar. The upland maple also affords a sap equally good, and both saps make a pleasant beverage without boiling, and the best punch ever drank in Connecticut.