Travels into North America, Volume 1 (of 3) — Reading Companion

A Naturalist’s Precision in Description

Kalm’s account of the hummingbird exemplifies his method. He reports that the bird’s nest is “quite round,” lined with “brownish and quite soft down” from mullein leaves, and coated externally with green moss. The inner diameter is “hardly a geometrical inch at the top,” its depth half an inch. Such measurements are not casual; they reflect the Linnaean imperative to quantify and categorize. Kalm also notes that the bird’s flight is “incredibly swift,” that it feeds solely on nectar, and that attempts to keep it in cages failed until Mr. Bartram fed it sugar water. These details are presented without embellishment, yet they convey the fragility of the creature and the difficulty of transplanting American nature into European frameworks. Kalm’s precision extends to the landscape: he records the distance to New Frankfurt as “eight or nine English miles,” and describes the enclosures, yokes, and wooden restraints used on livestock, always with an eye to their efficacy and potential hazards.

Colonial Agriculture and Its Constraints

Kalm’s journey through the settled parts of New York and Pennsylvania reveals a landscape shaped by European farming methods adapted to American conditions. He observes that “near almost every farm was a great orchard with peach and apple trees, some of which were yet loaded with fruit.” The enclosures, however, are “in some parts low enough, for the cattle to leap over with ease.” To prevent this, farmers employ a “triangular wooden yoke” for hogs and a “piece of wood” fastened to a horse’s fore and hind feet, forcing a slow gait. Kalm doubts the wisdom of the latter, noting that horses are “subject to all sorts of dangerous accidents from this piece of wood.” His commentary is understated but pointed: he records what he sees, weighs its utility, and offers a quiet judgment. The passage reflects his broader mission—to assess which American practices might benefit Swedish agriculture—and his willingness to critique even the methods of the colonists he studies.

The Translator’s Voice and the Swedish Context

Johann Reinhold Forster, the translator, adds his own layer to the text. In the preface, he explains that Kalm’s journey was proposed by Baron Sten Charles Bielke to the Royal Academy of Sciences at Stockholm, and that Linnaeus himself redirected the expedition from Siberia to North America, judging it “of a more extensive utility.” Forster’s dedication to Daines Barrington, a British antiquary and naturalist, frames the work as a display of “the circumstances of a country which is so happy as to be under its protection.” This political framing—the colonies as a British possession—colors the translation, as does Forster’s own role as a naturalist and later a member of Cook’s second voyage. The reader is thus encountering a double mediation: Kalm’s Swedish observations filtered through Forster’s English prose, with both men attuned to the practical applications of natural history for European audiences.

The Texture of Everyday Life in the Colonies

Beyond natural history, Kalm records the material culture of colonial settlements. He notes that the road to New York was “pretty well inhabited on both sides,” with “Englishmen, Germans and other Europeans” living on “plains and hills of different dimensions.” He mentions a “little stone bridge” near New Frankfurt, and the prevalence of peach and apple orchards. These details are woven into the narrative without fanfare, yet they accumulate into a portrait of a region in transition. Kalm’s eye for the mundane—the yokes, the enclosures, the packing of seeds for shipment to England—reveals the logistical underpinnings of colonial life. His own purpose, to gather seeds and plants for Swedish improvement, mirrors the larger exchange of knowledge and goods across the Atlantic. The volume ends with Kalm preparing to travel to Canada through “the desart or uninhabited country,” a reminder that much of the continent remains beyond European settlement.

Readers approaching this volume should attend to the interplay between Kalm’s empirical observations and Forster’s editorial framing. The text rewards those who read slowly, noting the precise measurements, the comparisons to European species, and the quiet judgments on colonial practices. Kalm’s voice is that of a working naturalist, not a romantic traveler; his value lies in the accumulation of concrete detail. Forster’s notes and preface add a layer of political and scientific context, reminding us that this travelogue was a tool for agricultural and economic improvement. To read it is to see eighteenth-century North America through the eyes of a Swedish scientist—a perspective both foreign and familiar, and one that reveals the continent as a laboratory for European ambitions.

There’s something grounding about Kalm’s careful notes on fences and fruit trees, how he trusted what his hands could measure. It makes me think of Lady Hester Stanhope, who likewise kept her own counsel, though her ledger was deserts and ruins rather than orchards. Both felt the pull of foreign soil, and I find myself pausing over that quiet difference. Travels of Lady Hester Stanhope, Volume 1 (of 3) — Reading Notes sits near my chair now, a gentler companion to Kalm’s precise world.