112 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



boiled swells into a white soft pulp, and eaten with 

 milk, or with butter and sugar, is delicious. The 

 dry grain is also sometimes ground loosely, so as to 

 be broken into pieces of the size of rice, and being 

 winnowed to separate the bran, it is then boiled and 

 eaten with turkies or other fowls, as rice. Ground 

 into a finer meal, they make of it by boiling, a hasty 

 pudding or bomlli, to be eaten with milk, or with 

 butter and sugar ; this resembles what the Italians 

 call polenta. They make of the same meal, with 

 water and salt, a hasty cake, which being stuck 

 against a hoe or other flat iron, is placed erect before 

 the fire, and so baked to be used as bread. Broth is 

 also agreeably thickened with the same meal. They 

 also parch it in this manner. An iron pot is filled 

 with sand, and set on the fire till the sand is very 

 hot. Two or three pounds of the grain are then 

 thrown in, and well mixed with the sand by stirring. 

 Each grain bursts and throws out a white substance 

 of twice its bigness. The sand is separated by 

 a wire sieve, and returned into the pot to be again 

 heated and repeat the operation with fresh grain. 

 That which is parched is pounded to a powder in 

 mortars. This being sifted will keep long for use. 

 An Indian will travel far and subsist long on a small 

 bag of it, taking only six or eight ounces of it per 

 day mixed with water. The flour of maize, mixed 

 with that of wheat, makes excellent bread, sweeter 

 and more agreeable than that of wheat alone. To 

 feed horses, it is good to soak the grain twelve hours, 

 they mash it easier with their teeth, and it yields 

 them more nourishment. The leaves stripped off* 

 the stalks after the grain is ripe, tied up in bundles 

 when dry, are excellent forage for horses, cows, &.c. 

 The stalks, pressed like sugar-cane, yield a sweet 

 juice, which being fermented and distilled yields an 

 excellent spirit ; boiled without fermentation, it 



