Re: Juniperus communis in Kalm's text, former Re: Wild kettle and oxen

From: Alaca (P.Alaca_at_is.invalid)
Date: 02/11/05 

Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 17:22:56 +0100

Martyn Harrison wrote in: b37p01duc0l5vg4sce0r8bbj3cr4su059h@4ax.com,

> [...]
> (C) Adriaen van der Donck "A Description of the New Netherlands"
> 1656. He reports juniper to be found from new amsterdam to
> everywhere else: "The mulberrries are better and sweeter than ours,
> and ripen earlier. Several kinds of plums, wild or small cherries,
> juniper, small kinds of apples, many hazel-nuts, black currants,
> gooseberries, blue India figs, and strawberries in abundance all
> over the country, some of which ripen at half May, and we have then
> until July ; blueberries, raspberries, black-caps, &c., "
>
> [...]

Martyn, thank you for pointing to Van der Donk.
Here is some more from another publication by him,
concerning trees.

================================================
The land is adapted to the production of all kinds of
winter and summer fruits, and with less trouble and
tilling than in the Netherlands. It produces different
kinds of woods, suitable for building houses and ships,
whether large or small, consisting of oaks of various
kinds, as post-oak, white smooth bark, white rough bark,
gray bark, black bark, and still another kind which they
call, from its softness, butter oak, the poorest of all,
and not very valuable; the others, if cultivated as in
the Netherlands, would be equal to any Flemish or Brabant
oaks. It also yields several species of nut wood, in
great abundance, such as oil-nuts, large and small; walnut
of different sizes, in great abundance, and good for fuel,
for which it is much used, and chestnut, the same as in
the Netherlands, growing in the woods without order.
There are three varieties of beech--water beech, common
Beech, and hedge beech--also axe-handle wood, two species
of canoe wood, ash, birch, pine, fir, juniper or wild
cedar, linden, alder, willow, thorn, elder, and many other
kinds useful for many purposes, but unknown to us by name,
and which we will be glad to submit to the carpenters for
further examination.
================================================
Adriaen van der Donck, 1650
The Representation of New Netherland concerning its
Location, Productiveness, and Poor Condition.
New York, 1909.
================================================ 

-- 
- Peter Alaca -