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re the tropical tobacco and rice fields needed negro labor. But New England's share in promoting negro slavery in America was just as great as was Virginia's. Besides all the rum that was sent to Africa, much was drunk by Americans at home. At weddings, funerals, christenings, at all public meetings and private feasts, New England rum was ever present. In nothing is more contrast shown between our present day and colonial times than in the habits of liquor-drinking. We cannot be grateful enough for the temperance reform, which began at the early part of this century, and was so sadly needed. For many years the colonists had no tea, chocolate, or coffee to drink; for those were not in use in England when America was settled. In 1690 two dealers were licensed to sell tea "in publique" in Boston. Green and bohea teas were sold at the Boston apothecaries' in 1712. For many years tea was also sold like medicine in England at the apothecaries' and not at the grocers'. Many queer mistakes were made through ignorance of its proper use. Many colonists put the tea into water, boiled it for a time, threw the liquid away, and ate the tea-leaves. In Salem they did not find the leaves very attractive, so they put butter and salt on them. In 1670 a Boston woman was licensed to sell coffee and chocolate, and soon coffee-houses were established there. Some did not know how to cook coffee any more than tea, but boiled the whole coffee-beans in water, ate them, and drank the liquid; and naturally this was not very good either to eat or drink. At the time of the Stamp Act, when patriotic Americans threw the tea into Boston harbor, Americans were just as great tea-drinkers as the English. Now it is not so. The English drink much more tea than we do; and the habit of coffee-drinking, first acquired in the Revolution, has descended from generation to generation, and we now drink more coffee than tea. This is one of the differences in our daily life caused by the Revolution. Many home-grown substitutes were used in Revolutionary times for tea: ribwort was a favorite one; strawberry and currant leaves, sage, thorough-wort, and "Liberty Tea," made from the four-leaved loosestrife. "Hyperion tea" was raspberry leaves, and was said by good patriots to be "very delicate and most excellent." CHAPTER VIII FLAX CULTURE AND SPINNING In recounting the various influences which assisted the Americans to success in the War for
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