378 CEREALS. 



in Europe, to prevent, as it will, those periodical famines 

 that, with their awful lieutenant pestilence, stalk so regularly 

 over the older continents. Where maize grows there can 

 never be a famine, as it supplies within itself all that is 

 requisite to make man or animal. By its use we are able to 

 sell meats at five or six cents, that a poor man in Europe 

 never sees, and can only be bought at from fifteen io twenty 

 cents per pound. 



Hog and hominy was the entire dish of the pioneer, the 

 source of hospitality of the backwoodsman. It gave life to 

 the wilds of America. Its delicious morsels are yet the pride 

 of the palate. 



Nor does corn keep its sweetness to itself, but through the 

 aid of bees it stores for man's use tons of honey. And 

 when stung by the aphides its very tears are honey dew, 

 thus, in its destruction, holding out a dying gift to man. 



Without corn, the discovery of Columbus would have 

 been long in benefitting mankind. The settlers could 

 scarcely live with the meagre assistance afforded from 

 Europe, and many of them starved as it was. Tennessee 

 certainty could not so soon have had the population it did, 

 for our forefathers, profiting by the example set by the 

 Indians, would parch a bag of corn, and with this bar to 

 hunger fearlessly cross the mountains into an uninhabited 

 region, where they could not by any means, except by the 

 slaughter of wild animals, have subsisted otherwise. 



A war party of Indians will not hesitate- to undertake a 

 long and dangerous journey into an enemy's country, and 

 endure hardships unknown to us, swimming rivers, climbing 

 mountains, making journeys of wondrous distances, and 

 yet their whole subsistance is a small bag of parched corn, 

 crushed between two stones. , 



Corn is undoubtedly fed too lavishly to horses. It is 

 very rich in carbonaceous substances, its heat producing 

 compounds being about 70 per cent, of its composition, and 

 consequently creating great heat in the animal. 



