pumpkins, turnips, etc. On the highest part of this sandy eminence,
four windmills grind the grain they raise or import; and contiguous
to them their rope walk is to be seen, where full half of their
cordage is manufactured. Between the shores of the harbour, the
docks, and the town, there is a most excellent piece of meadow,
inclosed and manured with such cost and pains as show how necessary
and precious grass is at Nantucket. Towards the point of Shemah, the
island is more level and the soil better; and there they have
considerable lots well fenced and richly manured, where they
diligently raise their yearly crops. There are but very few farms on
this island, because there are but very few spots that will admit of
cultivation without the assistance of dung and other manure; which
is very expensive to fetch from the main. This island was patented
in the year 1671, by twenty-seven proprietors, under the province of
New York; which then claimed all the islands from the Neway Sink to
Cape Cod. They found it so universally barren and so unfit for
cultivation, that they mutually agreed not to divide it, as each
could neither live on, nor improve that lot which might fall to his
share. They then cast their eyes on the sea, and finding themselves
obliged to become fishermen, they looked for a harbour, and having
found one, they determined to build a town in its neighbourhood and
to dwell together. For that purpose they surveyed as much ground as
would afford to each what is generally called here a home lot. Forty
acres were thought sufficient to answer this double purpose; for to
what end should they covet more land than they could improve, or
even inclose; not being possessed of a single tree, in the whole
extent of their new dominion. This was all the territorial property
they allotted; the rest they agreed to hold in common, and seeing
that the scanty grass of the island might feed sheep, they agreed
that each proprietor should be entitled to feed on it if he pleased