NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 163 



NOTE GG. 



This ia probably the glycine apios, or wild potato, which is nearly as good as the 

 common, and which was, when boiled, a favourite food of the Indians. 



The Jerusalem artichoke, or helianthus tuberosus, grows spontaneously over the coun- 

 try, is sometimes brought to our markets for sale, and is a wholesome, agreeable vege- 

 table. This plant ought to be cultivated. It produces about four hundred and eighty 

 bushels an acre. It flourishes in almost any soil, bringing, almost invariably, a certain 

 crop, and it is also proof against the severest frosts. 



The bulb of arrowhead, or sagittaria sagittifolia, boiled, or roasted in hot ashes, was eat 

 by our Indians. It tasted nearly like potatoes. It is commonly an inch and a half long, 

 and one inch and a half broad in the middle, is sometimes as large as a man's fist, and 

 grows in low, muddy, and very wet ground. It composes a considerable part of the food 

 of the Chinese, and is cultivated by them. It ought to be carefully guarded against 

 swine, who eagerly devour it. In a valley to the west of the Rocky Mountains, which 

 extends seventy miles, it is found in great abundance, and is a principal article of trade 

 between the inhabitants of that valley and those of the sea coast. 



Our Indians also made use of the. root of a vegetable which they called tawho, tawkin, 

 or tuckab, and which, Kalm says, is the arum virginicum, or wake robin. When fresh it 

 has a pungent taste, but when roasted it is like potatoes. It flourishes in moist grounds 

 and swamps, and often grows to the thickness of a man's thigh, but is nearly extirpated 

 by the hogs. 



They also eat the dried seeds of the orontium aquaticum, called by them tawkee; they 

 were boiled in water, and eat like peas, or made into bread. This plant was plentiful in 

 moist and low grounds. Whortleberries, or huckleberries, were dried by them and made 

 into a dainty dish, by being mixed with fresh maize flour, and baked. They also gathered 

 and dried hickory and black walnuts; look out the kernels and pounded them as fine as 

 flour ; mixed this substance with water, which took a milky colour, and was as sweet as 

 milk. 



The tuckahoe (or tawkee, as Kalm supposes) was probably a native of this slate. 

 The lycoperdon tuber of Linnaeus, called truffles, grows here and in New Jersey, and 

 we have a place called Tuckahoe. These tuberous productions are not the same. The 

 fndians made delicious bread from their farinaceous matter. 





