204 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [N. s., 22, 1920
which are here denominated "ancient garden-beds," indicate an earlier and more perfect system of cultivation than that which now prevails.
In another place,
the depressions or walks between the beds were about eight inches deep and fifteen inches wide.
As to the existence of such remains in New England, we seem to have only a statement by Jeremy Belknap, applying to New Hampshire, and a doubtful report from Massachusetts. Belknap wrote in 1792:
The remains of their fields are still visible in many places; they were not extensive, and the hills which they made about their corn stalks were small. 1
The Massachusetts instance is mentioned in the Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, which does not seem to take it seriously. Under the heading " Indian-corn hills," it remarks: " In Essex Co., Mass., according to Bartlett, hummocky land resembling hills of Indian corn." 2 The original description by Bartlett we have not traced to its source.
Mr. William M. Cotton, of Providence, informs the writers that when he was a boy, living in Pomfret, Connecticut, in unculti- vated pastures on his farm there were numerous small mounds that were generally known as Indian corn-hills. Whether they still exist and are so known, we have not learned. We have personally investigated, however, two localities in Massachusetts in which the ancient Indian corn-hills" unquestionably persist.
That there should be any traces left at the present day of the gardens cultivated by the Indians two hundred and fifty years ago and earlier, may at first sight seem incredible. But there are many fields in New England, probably some in every town, that have always been used by white men as pastures, and have never been touched by the plough. Any of these which may have been used by the Indians as corn fields would stand an excellent chance of having the hills indefinitely preserved, because of the way in which the Jndians did their planting. The early settlers and explorers give interesting accounts of this, and we may advantageously
1 History of New Hampshire, vol. in, p. 88.
2 Vol. i, 607.
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