It is curious that green peas are to be had as early in Long Island,
and in the seaboard part of the state of New Jersey, as in England, though
not sowed there, observe, until very late in April, while ours, to be very
early, must be sowed in the month of December or January. It is still more
curious, that, such is the effect of habit and tradition, that, even when
I was last in America (1819), people talked just as familiarly as in
England about having green peas on the _king's birth-day_, and were
just as ambitious for accomplishing the object; and I remember a gentleman
who had been a republican officer during the revolutionary war, who told
me that he always got in his garden green peas fit to eat on old _Uncle
George's birth-day_.
_Cider._
Mr. Platt had a curious mode of making strong cider in America. In the
month of January or February, he placed a number of hogsheads of cider
upon stands out of doors. The frost turned to ice the upper part of the
contents of the hogshead, and a tap drew off from the bottom the part
which was not frozen. This was the spirituous part, and was as strong as
the very strongest of beer that can be made. The frost had no power over
this part; but the lighter part which was at the top it froze into ice.
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