No earlier mention of anything strictly American in English literature has come to light.

Indian Agriculture

Let us turn now and take a look at the farming accomplishments of the American Indians. The oft repeated statement that the Indians lived mainly by hunting and fishing so far as it pertains to the Virginia tribes is far from the truth.

The bitter struggles between the white men and the Indians during the colonial period created animosities and prejudices which have overshadowed the beneficial contributions the red men have made to civilization. As plant breeders, the American Indians rank with the most skillful of the world. Take for instance, maize or Indian corn. There is nothing closely comparable to it known to botanists. It has been domesticated so long that its wild prototype is unknown. Maize, now, could not exist anywhere in the world without the aid of man. The Indians had all the varieties that are now known, such as dent, flint, sweet, early, late, pop, and other special sorts which are no longer grown. They had developed varieties that matured all the way from the tropics to the St. Lawrence River in Canada.

The Indians also practiced a mixed culture such as corn, beans, and squashes all in the same hill; they had created a large number of varieties of beans (Phaseolus genus): the white, red, black, and spotted sorts now so commonly grown, and many others.

Indian Tillage

The Indians were able to clear fields, of several hundred acres in extent, without the aid of metal tools, using fire as their chief agent. Trees, too large to be cut with their stone hatchets, were killed either by building a fire at the base or by girdling the bark. The trees in dying furnished fire wood for domestic use. Planting began among the dead trees wherever enough loose dirt could be scraped together to make a hill for seeding. In the course of time the fields became entirely free from forest growth. These fields were cropped in most cases until their fertility was exhausted and then abandoned. If there was no more available fertile land in the vicinity, the tribe moved to a new location. The early white settlers on the Atlantic Coast found many of these abandoned clearings. Because of their unproductiveness they were called "poisoned fields."

The Indians had only the crudest sorts of farming tools. Near the coast, sea shells were the most efficient implements they possessed. The fresh-water clam-shells came next in usefulness. Where these natural scrapers were not available, pointed sticks, and pieces of flat rock served the purpose. One writer describing the Illinois Indians' method of farming says:

Indian vs. Old World Culture

Attention has been called to the fact that all of the field crops of Great Britain, at the time of the English settlements in America, were broad-cast seeded. The Indians had developed a far different cultural treatment for their crops. In their most common method, that of hill planting, the soil in the intervening spaces was not broken. The hills, two to four feet apart, were from 12 to 20 or more inches in diameter. The soil in these hills was all that was stirred or loosened. All weeds, both in the hills and the intervals between them, were kept cut or pulled out. Four to six grains of maize and two or three beans were seeded in each hill, separately spaced. Squashes and pumpkins were sometimes seeded with the corn and beans. This mixed seeding is a unique feature of American agriculture.

The Indians were fortunate in not having to contend with many of the weeds, insects and plant-diseases which now plague farmers and gardeners. Practically all of these pests, some of quite recent date, are of Old World origin and have been introduced by white men, into America.

Birds and small animals gave the Indians more concern than all their other pests combined. It was customary to build in their gardens small watch-houses in which the young folks took turns in staying to scare away crows and other troublesome birds.

The same hills were used year after year and became in time quite sizable mounds, remains of which have persisted, in some localities, until modern times. In the southwestern parts of Michigan, the early settlers found large tracts of ridged land, evidently relics of Indian agriculture. It is now thought that these areas were corn fields in which the seeding was made in continuous rows instead of hills. A French artist in Florida in 1564 pictured the Indians seeding their crops in rows.

After a few years of failure in their attempts to grow American crops, the English colonists adopted the Indian method of seeding, but usually neglected the weeding, and were subjected to ridicule for their shiftlessness by the painstaking squaws. In using work-animals for cultivating corn, it was found advantageous to destroy the weeds by stirring the ground in the intervening spaces.

The Settlement of Jamestown

On the 26th day of April, 1607, three small ships carrying 105 colonists passed between Cape Charles and Cape Henry into Chesapeake Bay for the purpose of founding a colony in the land called Virginia. The voyagers took seventeen days to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of that region for such an undertaking.

First consideration for selecting the site was its possibilities for defense against a foreign foe, especially the Spaniards, in Florida and the West Indies. This was no idle fear. Spain and England had for many years been in conflict. Moreover, Spain claimed all of the Americas by the right of discovery.

The second most important thing for consideration was adequate harbor facilities. In both of these particulars, the site selected about thirty miles up the James River left little to be desired. The Jamestown peninsula jutted out into the river far enough to give an unobstructed view for several miles. The character of the land on either side of the river would have made difficult any attempt at an overland attack.

The James was sufficiently deep to take care of any ocean going vessels of that time. The heavily forested surroundings furnished protection from violent storms. The channel ran near the shore. Ships could be moored by cables to trees on the land.

From the standpoint of raising food stuffs, the colonists could hardly have picked a more unfavorable situation. The peninsula was connected with the shore to the north by a narrow neck of land "thirty yards over." As this narrow strip of land was usually flooded during times of high water, the peninsula was for most purposes an island by which designation it is generally known.

There were about eight hundred and fifty acres of heavily timbered forest lands on the island and about eight hundred acres of marsh covered with coarse reedy grasses but there was no cleared land ready for seeding.

Clearing forest lands even with modern tools and equipment is a slow laborious process. Cutting down the trees is