188 RURAL MICHIGAN 



device that even yot fnnftions in that capacity. 

 Some farmers insisted tlie seed must be in the ground 

 by the fifth of May, while May tenth came to have 

 ahnost the force of a Biblical injunction, althougli 

 good crops were secured I'roiM dune plantings. The 

 number of kernels to bo placed in each hill was re- 

 duced to a poetic formula : 



"One for the blackbird, one for the crow; 

 One for the cut-worm and three to grow." 



Frost had to be reckoned with in the pioneer era, 

 even more than now, for the heavy timber impeded 

 the free movement of the atmosphere and the ground 

 deep with humus might be damp and cold. If corn 

 was good for folks, it was also well liked by "friends 

 in feathers and fur," and it required constant vigi- 

 lance to save its tender shoots from the deer and its 

 grain in the ground or the shock from the pigeon 

 and the wild turkey, the squirrel and the raccoon. 

 What escaped these claimants to the first fruits was 

 ground in a hand-mill, a half-bushel in an evening, 

 says one narrator; or even a large coffee-mill might 

 be pressed into service. In the pioneer period, more 

 concern was manifest in corn as human food than as 

 provender for live-stock, at a time when pigs ran 

 freely in the woods and were nourished by its acorns 

 and beech-nuts. 



Corn has continued to be an important element 

 among Michigan field crops. In 1904, the yield was 



