I04 WILD, OR A'ATIVE FLOWERS. 



brown tinge, is then ripe. The Indian-woman (they do not like to be 

 called squaws since they have become Christians) pushes her light bark 

 canoe or skiff to the edge of the Rice-beds armed not with a sickle, but 

 with a more primitive instrument — a short, thin-bladed, somewhat 

 curved, wooden paddle, with which she strikes the heads of ripe grain 

 over a stick which she holds in her other hand, directing the stroke so as 

 to let the grain fall to the bottom of the canoe ; and thus the Wild Rice 

 crop is reaped, to give pleasant, nourishing and satisfying /ood to her 

 hungry family. 



There are many ways of preparing dishes of Indian Rice : as an 

 ingredient for savoury soups or stews ; or with milk, sugar and spices, as 

 puddings; but the most important thing to be observed in cooking the 

 article is steeping the grain — pouring off the water it is steeped in and 

 the first water it is boiled in, which removes any weedy taste from it. 

 It used to be a favourite dish at many tables, but it is more difficult to 

 obtain now. 



The grain all collected, it is winnowed in wide baskets from the 

 chaff and weedy-matter, parched by a certain process peculiar to the 

 Indians, and stored in mats or rough boxes made from the bark of the 

 Birch tree — the Indian's own tree. Formerly we could buy the Indian 

 Rice in any of the grocery stores at 7s. 6d. per bushel, but it is much 

 more costly now, as the Indians find it more difficult to obtain. Confined 

 to their villages, they have no longer the resources that formerly helped 

 to maintai:i them. The birch-bark canoe is now a thing of the past; the 

 Wild Rice is now only a luxury in their |iouses ; by and by the Indians 

 also will disappear from their log-houses and villages and be known only 

 as a people that were, but are not. I am not aware of any other edible 

 grain that is indigenous to Canada. The Y Qy.-X.^iA, Setaria viridis, (Beauv.) 

 indeed, has hard seeds, but it is utilized only in some places where it 

 abounds (to the farmer's great disgust) as food for his hogs and fowls. 

 The inarsh-growing Red-top or Herd-grass, Agrosiis vulgaris, (With.) is 

 used as hay. We have many other wild, coarse grasses also that are 

 harvested ; and the prairies abound with nutritious plants of this Order 

 which are a great resource for the support of the cattle during all seasons. 

 What would become of the settler's beasts in the North -West Provinces 

 but lor the Prairie Hay ? Very beautiful varieties of the lovely Prairie- 

 grasses have been gathered by kind friends and sent to me from this 

 " Wild North Land." 



One, the cruel Arrow Grass, Sdpa spartea, (Trm.) is a great nuisance 

 to the settler, the barbed shafts and curiously twisted stipes piercing hands 

 and feet or insinuating their hard points into the flesh or clothing. The 

 long, twisted arrows of this grass have a curious fashion of winding 



