, as well as
in any other part of the world, as for example, wheat, barley, oats,
rye, peas, rape, &c. And yet they don't make a trade of any of them.
Their peas indeed are troubled with weevils, which eat a hole in them,
but this hole does neither damage the seed, nor make the peas unfit for
boiling. And such as are sowed late, and gathered after August, are
clear of that inconvenience.

It is thought too much for the same man, to make the wheat, and grind
it, bolt it, and bake it himself. And it is too great a charge for every
planter, who is willing to sow barley, to build a malt house, and brew
house too, or else to have no benefit of his barley; nor will it answer,
if he would be at the charge. These things can never be expected from a
single family; but if they had cohabitations, it might be thought worth
attempting. Neither as they are now settled, can they find any certain
market for their other grain, which, if they had towns, would be quite
otherwise.

Rice has been tried there, and is found to grow as well as in Carolina;
but it labors under the same inconvenience, the want of a community to
husk and clean it, and, after all, to take it off the planter's hands.

Sec. 98. I have related at large in the first book how flax, hemp, cotton,
and the silk worms have thriven there in the several essays made upon
them; how formerly there was encouragement given for making of linen,
silk, &c., and how all persons not performing several things towards
producing of them were put under a fine; but now all encouragement of
such things is taken away or entirely dropped by the assemblies, and
such manufactures are always neglected when tobacco bears anything of a
price.

Silk grass is there spontaneous in many places. I need not mention what
advantage may be made of so useful a plant, whose fibres are as fine as
flax, and much stronger than hemp. Mr. Purchase tells us, in his Fourth
Pilgrim, page 1786, that in the first discovery of this part of the
world they presented Queen Elizabeth with a piece of grogram that had
been made of it. And yet to this day they make no manner of use of this
plant, no, not so much as the Indians did, before the English came among
them, who then made their baskets, fishing nets, and lines of it.

Sec. 99. The sheep increase well, and bear good fleeces; but they generally
are suffered to be torn off their backs by briars and bushes, instead of
being shorn, or else are left rotting upon the d