98 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



thrown away.^ They are neither used for food, fuel, feed, 

 nor manure; for the latter is considered a nuisance. 



After my visit to Mr. Ellsworth, I met with our old 

 friend, Mr. Colt,^ of New Jersey, at the great Chicago 

 Convention.^ Owing to the vast crowd of people and 

 business, I did not have the opportunity that I wished to 

 glean intelligence from so enterprising a Jersey farmer 

 as he is well known to be ; but as a matter of course, the 

 things that our minds most did dwell upon were discussed 

 over the dinner table, where I mentioned my conversa- 

 tion with Mr. Ellsworth, upon the subject of corn-cobs, 

 and my belief that they would be highly advantageous to 

 feed in small quantities to all kinds of stock, solely on 

 account of the alkaline properties that many an ancient 

 dame knows that they possess. For oft has she made 

 cobley when pearlash was high ; and even if a little should 

 be mixed in human food it would not injure it; and in the 

 stomach of fattening hogs particularly, it would prove an 

 excellent corrector of acidity. This idea was nothing new 

 to so inquiring a mind as that of Mr. C, and he told me 

 that he had tendered a donation of one hundred dollars to 

 the American Institute for a complete analysis of corn- 

 cobs, so as to prove whether there was any nutritive qual- 

 ity in them. 



But my opinion is, that if the hundred dollars were 

 spent in actual experiments of feeding live stock with 

 cob-meal, a much more satisfactory result might be ar- 

 rived at, than can possibly be done by any chemical 



*In the March issue of the Ame7-ican Agriculturist, 1848 (7:85), 

 Reviewer remarked that he was "glad to see . . . Mr. Robinson 

 , . . still flying about among the pigs, and giving . . . interesting 

 descriptions of the manner of making them into pork and other 

 matters," but he was extremely skeptical of the value of corncobs 

 as food. 



' Roswell L. Colt, Paterson, New Jersey. Correspondent of the 

 American Agriculturist, 1848, and Cultivator, 1850. In 1849 Mr. 

 Colt inquired about the nutritive value of corncobs in a letter to 

 the commissioner of the Patent Office. Report of the Commissioner 

 of Patents, 1849, pt. 2:229. 



' Chicago River and Harbor Convention. See ante, 92n-93n. 



