STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 



eleven feet; but with the culm and flower it would have 

 measured twelve or thirteen feet in length. 



The month of September or later, in October, is the 

 Indian's Kice harvest. The grain, which is long and narrow 

 and of an olive green or 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 Kice 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 strokes 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 

 food to her hungry family. 



There are many -ways of preparing dishes of Indian Eice : 

 as an ingredient for savory 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 favorite dish at many tables, but it is 

 more difficult to obtain now. 



The grain, when collected, 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 Kice 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 maintain them. The birch- 

 bark canoe is now a thing of the past ; the Wild Rice is now 



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