CROPS IN THE EARLY DAYS 



the whole shocks of corn were thus stored. The husk- 

 ing of the corn gave opportunity for great frolics, and 

 it is one of the few diversions of our ancestors which 

 possesses romance enough to be popular among young 

 people of the present time. Probably its popularity is 

 due to the perpetual presence of red ears. 



Such good things as were made of the corn! — mush 

 or hasty pudding, well deserving the eloquent tribute 

 paid to it by Joel Barlow in his "Ode to Hasty Pud- 

 ding," as it came hot and fragrant from its long, slow 

 cooking over the coals; hoe cake or ash cake, crisp and 

 so brown and tasty around the edges. A delicious 

 johnny-cake was made by mixing the meal with hot 

 water, spreading it on a smooth oak board, covering 

 the dough with thick cream and slightly tipping it up in 

 front of the fire to cook, turning it as needed. The truly 

 old-fashioned bean porridge was thickened with corn 

 meal. 



A lady who was born in 1818 once told me her ex- 

 planation of the common saying, "He'll never set the 

 Thames [or river] afire." The Indian meal used to be 

 sifted into a long wooden bread tray, and from one end 

 to the other ran a flat stick to support the coarse cloth- 

 bottomed sieve or "tempse." A swift worker moving 

 this quickly back and forth might possibly "set the 

 tempse afire," but a slow person never would. 



In most communities, in the early days, wheat was 



