18 The Environmental Debate
could hardly subsist for one month upon the
produce of their gardens and fields. Commonly,
the little villages of Indians are about twelve or
eighteen miles distant from each other. From
hence one may judge, how little ground was for-
merly employed for planting corn-fields; and the
rest was overgrown with thick and tall trees. And
though they cleared (as is yet usual) new ground,
as soon as the old one had lost its fertility; yet
such little pieces as they made use of were very
inconsiderable, when compared to the vast for-
est which remained. Thus the upper fertile soil
increased considerably for centuries together; and
the Europeans coming to America found a rich,
fine soil before them, lying as loose between the
trees as the best bed in a garden. They had noth-
ing to do but to cut down the wood, put it up in
heaps, and to clear the dead leaves away. They
could then immediately proceed to plowing,
which in such loose ground is very easy; and hav-
ing sown their corn, they got a most plentiful har-
vest. This easy method of getting a rich crop has
spoiled the English and other European settlers,
and induced them to adopt the same method of
agriculture which the Indians make use of; that is,
to sow uncultivated grounds, as long as they will
produce a crop without manuring, but to turn
them into pastures as soon as they can bear no
more, and to take on new spots of ground, cov-
ered since time immemorial with woods, which
have been spared by the fire or the hatchet ever
since the creation.Source: Peter Kalm, Travels into North America; containing
Its Natural History, and a Circumstantial Account of
Its Plantations and Agriculture in General, trans. John
Reinhold Forster, Vol. 2 (Warrington, England: William
Eyres, 1772), pp. 191-94.The rye grows very poorly in most of the
fields, which is chiefly owing to the carelessness
in agriculture, and to the poorness of the fields,
which are seldom or never manured. After the
inhabitants have converted a tract of land into
a tillable field, which had been a forest for many
centuries together, and which consequently had a
very fine soil, they use it as such; as long as it will
bear any corn; and when it ceases to bear any, they
turn it into pasture for the cattle, and take new
corn-fields in another place, where a fine soil can
be met with and where it has never been made use
of for this purpose. This kind of agriculture will
do for some time; but it will afterwards have bad
consequences, as every one may clearly see. A few
of the inhabitants, however, treat their fields a lit-
tle better: the English in general have carried agri-
culture to a higher degree of perfection than any
other nation. But the depth and richness of the
soil, which those found here who came over from
England (as they were preparing land for plow-
ing, which had been covered with woods from
times immemorial) misled them, and made them
careless husbandmen. It is well known, that the
Indians lived in this country for several centuries
before the Europeans came into it; but it is like-
wise known, that they lived chiefly by hunting and
fishing, and had hardly any fields. They planted
maize, and some species of beans and gourds; and
at the same time it is certain, that a plantation of
such vegetables as serve an Indian family during
one year, take up no more ground than a farmer
in our country takes to plant cabbage for his fam-
ily upon; at least, a farmer's cabbage and turnep
ground, taken together, is always as extensive, if
not more so, than the corn-fields and kitchen-gar-
dens of an Indian family. Therefore, the Indians
Document 17: Peter Kalm on Land Management (1753)
Peter Kalm was a professor of economy at the University of Aobo in Swedish Finland. His travels in America
between 1748 and 1751 were one of a series of voyages sponsored by the Royal Academy at Stockholm “to make... such observations and collections of seeds and plants as would improve the Swedish husbandry, gardening,
manufactures, arts and sciences. [The great Swedish botanist] Dr. [Carl] Linnaus... thought that a voyage through
North America would be yet of a more extensive utility, than that through [Siberia and Iceland]; for the plants of
America were then little known, and not scientifically described.”^8 Here Kalm discusses land use in the colonies.