RETURN FROM PITTSBURG 297 



part of North Carolina. He told me of solid iron, 

 which admits of cutting, found (but rarely) in North 

 Carolina. 



We found the road pretty good through the re- 

 mainder of the Glades until in the evening we came to 

 Marshall, the smith's, at the foot of the Alleghany. 

 Our horses needed shoeing. But we were obliged to 

 be patient spectators until he had leisurely devoured 

 his meal ; we gained nothing by asking him in a 

 friendly way to help us on, since the night and a bad 

 road lay before us. He was an American-German 

 gentleman ! 



In these Glades, described above, in reality a broken, 

 elevated valley between the Alleghany and the Laurel- 

 hill, all sorts of grain are cultivated. Maize, however, 

 does not everywhere come to complete maturity, and 

 the people are accustomed to plant only so much of 

 the commonest sort as they count on eating green. 

 When the maize has just formed its ' ears ', and the 

 grain is still soft and full of sap, the Americans hold 

 it to be a delicacy ; the ears are boiled or baked in the 

 ashes, and eaten with salt and butter, and in the towns 

 cried for sale as ' hot corn/ But in this valley there 

 is a variety of early corn which developes smaller in- 

 deed, but does better. Much summer wheat is sowed. 

 Winter wheat must be got into the ground very early, 

 the end of August or about the first of September. 

 When we first came over the road we saw wheat just 

 sowing at a certain place, and after 14 days, on our 

 return, it was already several inches out of the ground. 

 A light hoar-frost is observed in the Glades during the 

 summer, once or twice in almost every month ; this 

 summer more than formerly. The inhabitants know 



