78 



[Senate 



tributaries of the Mississippi. Upon their banks are the corn-growing 

 districts of the country ; and there, also, at no distant day, will be 

 seated the millions of our race. Experience demonstrates that no peo- 

 ple can rely wholly upon exchanges for the substance of their bread- 

 stuffs, but that they must look chiefly to the soil they cultivate. This 

 law of production and consumption, is destined to introduce the gradual 

 use of corn flour, as a partial substitute at least, for its superior rival, 

 in those districts where it is the natural product of the soil. In the 

 southern portions of the country this principle is already attested, by 

 the fact that corn bread enters as largely into human consumption as 

 wheaten. Next to wheat, this grain, perhaps, contains the largest 

 amount of nutriment. It is the cheapest and surest of all the grains to 

 cultivate ; and is, also, the cheapest article of subsistence known among 

 men. Although wheat can be cultivated in nearly all sections of the 

 country ; although its production can be increased to an unlimited de- 

 gree by a higher agriculture ; we have yet great reason to be thankful 

 for this secondary grain, whose reproductive energy is so unmeasured 

 as to secure the millions of our race, through all coming time, against 

 the dangers of scarcity or the pressure of want. 



0-yeh-qua-a-weh, or Indian Tobacco. 



Tobacco is another gift of the Indian to the world ; but a gift, it 

 must be admitted, of questionable utility. We call both corn and to- 

 bacco the legacy of the Eed man ; as these indigenous plants, but for 

 his nurture and culture through so many ages, might have perished, 

 like other varieties of the fruits of the earth. Many of our choicest 

 fruits owe their origin to vegetable combinations entirely fortuitous. 

 They spring up spontaneously, flourish for a season and become extinct, 

 but for the watchful care of man. Nature literally pours forth her 

 vegetable wealth, and buries beneath her advancing exuberance the 

 products of the past. But few of the fruits and plants, and flowers of 

 the ancient world, have come down to us unchanged ; and still other 

 plants, perhaps, have perished unknown in the openings of the past, 

 which contained within their shrivelled and stinted foliage, the germ 

 of some fruit, or grain, or plant, which might have nourished or clothed 

 the whole human family. We may therefore, perchance, owe a debt 

 to the Indian, in these particulars, beyond our utmost acknowledgments. 



The Senecas still cultivate tobacco. Their name signifies '* The only 

 Tohaccoj^^ because they considered this variety superior to all others. 

 A specimen is furnished. It is raised from the seed, which is sown or 



