If, as we believe, the "fields" enumerated were cornfields, and cultivated in the manner suggested,--at first one field, and year by year, as necessity should require, a new field added,--there would naturally become, among a people situated as they were, a necessity for a granary for the storing and preservation of their crops. Consequently, in the enumeration of public buildings in Boston at a later period, we find mentioned "a public granary." The burying-ground on Tremont Street, known as the Granary Burying-Ground, was laid out on land taken from the Common in 1660, and, of course, took its name from the granary, which was built soon after on what was afterwards Centry Street, and now Park Street. Shurtleff says the land was first taken for the purpose, and "then, when the need came, a building, eighty feet by thirty feet, for a public granary, was erected, and subsequently, in 1737, removed to the corner, its end fronting on the principal street (Tremont). It stood until 1809, when it gave place to Park Street Church." So that, though latterly for some years used for another purpose, the granary stood in Boston for more than one hundred and forty years. It is described as a long wooden building, and was calculated to hold twelve thousand bushels of corn. In 1733, it would seem that corn or other grain continued to be grown in Boston, as in October of that year it was determined to erect a granary at the North End, "not to exceed £100" in cost. In the records of the selectmen, it is called a meal-house, and John Jeffries, Esq., and Mr. David Colson, two of the selectmen, were to contract for the work on a piece of land near the North Mill, belonging to the town. So that at what time the cultivation of corn ceased in Boston, it is impossible to tell; but it would seem, from the necessity for a new granary in 1733, that it must have continued for considerably more than a hundred years after the settlement of the town. IV. PURITAN GOVERNMENT. The early government of the Puritans in Boston was a sort of extemporary government, or, as it has been described, "temporary usurpation,"--a government of opinions and prejudices, and in small sense a government of law. It had some of the features of a family government, without system or order. If the inhabitant offended, or did any thing which was not thought proper by the Church, the assistants, or anybody else, fine or punishment was pretty sure to follow. To be sure there was the Massachusetts Colony Charter somewhere; but it is singular that the copy of it found among Hutchinson's papers, and since printed, is certified to be a "true copy of such letters patents under the great seal of England," by John Winthrop, Governor, dated "this 19th day of the month called March, 1613-1644." This verbose and peculiar document gives authority to the company in the matter of government in the following elaborate form:--