agriculture among the primitive Americans, especially in the
northeast. Corn, beans, and squashes were an important element in
the diet of the Indians of the New England region, while farther
south potatoes, sunflower seeds, and melons were also articles of
food. The New England tribes knew enough about agriculture to use
fish and shells for fertilizer. They had wooden mattocks and hoes
made from the shoulder blades of deer, from tortoise shells, or
from conch shells set in handles. They also had stone hoes and
spades, while the women used short pickers or parers about a foot
long and five inches wide. Seated on the ground they used these
to break the upper part of the soil and to grub out weeds, grass,
and old cornstalks. They had the regular custom of burning over
an old patch each year and then replanting it. Sometimes they
merely put the seeds in holes and sometimes they dug up and
loosened the ground for each seed. Clearings they made by
girdling the trees, that is, by cutting off the bark in a circle
at the bottom and thus causing the tree to die. The brush they
hacked or broke down and burned when it was dry enough.

There is much danger of confusing the agricultural condition of
the Indian after the European had modified his life with his
condition before the European came to America. For instance, in
the excellent article on agriculture in the "Handbook of American
Indians," conditions prevailing as late as 1794 in the States
south of the Great Lakes are spoken of as if typical of
aboriginal America. But at that time the white man had long been
in contact with the Indian, and iron tools had largely taken the
place of stone. The rapidity with which European importations
spread may be judged by the fact that as early as 1736 the
Iroquois in New York not only had obtained horses but were