shels in one year, it is
said he came very near being dealt with by his church for his wicked
hardihood. In more than one town the settlers fancied the balls were the
edible portion, and "did not much desire them." Nor were fashionable
methods of cooking them much more to be desired. In "The Accomplisht
Cook," used about the year 1700, potatoes were ordered to be boiled and
blanched; seasoned with nutmeg, cinnamon, and pepper; mixed with eringo
roots, dates, lemon, and whole mace; covered with butter, sugar, and
grape verjuice, made with pastry; then iced with rose-water and sugar,
and yclept a "Secret Pye." Alas, poor, ill-used, be-sugared, secreted
potato, fit but for kissing-comfits! we can well understand your
unpopularity.

Other vegetables were produced in New England in abundance. Higginson
speaks of green peas, turnips, parsnips, carrots, and cucumbers, and a
dozen fruits and berries. Cranberries were plentiful and soon were
exported to England. Josselyn gives a very full list of fruits and
vegetables and pot-herbs, including beans, which were baked by the
Indians in earthen pots as they are now in Boston bake-shops.

There was a goodly supply of game. Bradford wrote of the year 1621,
"beside waterfoule ther was great store of wild Turkies." Wood said
these turkeys sometimes weighed forty pounds apiece, and sold for four
shillings each. Josselyn assigned to them the enormous weight of sixty
pounds. All agreed that they were far superior to the English domestic
turkeys. Morton said they came in flocks of a hundred; yet the Winthrops
had great difficulty in getting two to breed from in 1683, and by 1690
it was rare to see a wild turkey in New England. The beautiful great
bronze birds had flown away from the white man's civilization and guns.

Flocks of thousands of geese took their noisy, graceful V-shaped flight
over New England, and were shot in large numbers. Dudley wrote home
that doves were so plentiful that they obscured the light. Josselyn said
he had bought in Boston a dozen pigeons all dressed for threepence. It
is said they were sometimes sold as low as a penny a dozen. Roger Clap
said it would have been counted a strange thing in early days to see a
piece of roast veal, beef, or mutton, though it was not long ere there
was roast goat. By 1684 a French refugee said beef, mutton, and pork
were but twopence a pound in Boston. Clap says he ate his samp, or
hominy, without butter or milk, but Higginson wro