VIII.] AND HUSKING. 



nineteen years of my life, that I passed amongst 

 the corn people, saw any thing but a bayonet 

 used for this purpose. In the South of France, 

 where the people have never had the happi- 

 ness to acquire liberty by the means of a 

 revolutionary war and royal invasions, the far- 

 mers do^ I am told, generally make use of the 

 handle oi the frying-pan for this purpose, which 

 they fix across the tub, edge-ways, in two 

 notches made in the sides of the tul) to receive 

 the implement. But, the Yankees, who always 

 call the bayonet wide George's toasting-fQrk 

 (and God knows the Cornwallises, and Bur- 

 goynes and Clintons left a pretty parcel in that 

 country behind them), invariably make use of 

 that royal and at once warlike and culinary and 

 agricultural implement. 



138. In the next Chapter, I shall have to speak 

 of the various uses to which the grain is applica- 

 ble, and to describe minutely the mode of appli- 

 cation 5 but, as I have here treated so far, of the 

 husks and the cobbs, and have before treated of the 

 stalks, I shall here speak of the uses of all these. 

 The husk, properly so called, consists of those 

 delicate leaves by which the ear is enveloped. 

 These are finer and finer, tougher and tougher, 

 and more and more elastic, as they approach the 

 ear. The number to each ear is generally nine, 

 sometimes twelve, and sometimes as many as 



