In our plantation we have already a quart of milk for a penny. But the abundant increase of corn proves this country to be a wonderment. Thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, are ordinary here: yea, Joseph’s increase in Egypt is outstripped here with us. Our planters hope to have more than a hundred-fold this year. And all this while I am within compass: what will you say of two-hundred-fold, and upwards? It is almost incredible what great gain some of our English planters have had by our Indian corn. Credible persons have assured me, and the party himself avouched the truth of it to me, that, of the setting of thirteen gallons of corn, he hath had increase of it fifty-two hogsheads, every hogshead holding seven bushels of London measure; and every bushel was by him sold and trusted to the Indians for so much beaver as was worth eighteen shillings; and so of this thirteen gallons of corn, which was worth six shillings eightpence, he made about £327 of it the year following, as by reckoning will appear: where you may see how God blesseth husbandry in this land. There is not such great and plentiful ears of corn, I suppose, anywhere else to be found but in this country, being also of variety of colors, as red, blue, and yellow, &c.; and of one corn there springeth four or five hundred. I have sent you many ears of divers colors, that you might see the truth of it. Little children here, by setting of corn, may earn much more than their own maintenance.... For beasts, there are some bears, and they say some lions also; for they have been seen at Cape Ann. Also here are several sorts of deer, some whereof bring three or four young ones at once, which is not ordinary in England; also wolves, foxes, beavers, martens, great wildcats, and a great beast called a molke,[451] as big as an ox. I have seen the skins of all these beasts since I came to this plantation, excepting lions. Also here are great store of squirrels,――some greater, and some smaller and lesser: there are some of the lesser sort, they tell me, that by a certain skin will fly from tree to tree,[452] though they stand far distant. Of the Water of New England.