Indian Corn Growing in Natal. 153 
and thatched, to be used for winter food for cattle. In 
this colony, we think that sufficient attention is not paid in 
this particular, and that more general use should be made 
of tops and stalks; the former for winter keep for stocks of 
all kinds, and the latter for fuel for domestic purposes. If 
mealie stalks, after being carted home from the field, were 
cut into short lengths—say from eighteen to twenty inches 
long,—were stacked, and covered down with grass to keep 
them dry until they are required for the purpose to which 
the grower designs them for, much profit would accrue to 
him. We constantly see the natives, who live at any con- 
siderable distance from wood, carrying to their kraals all 
their mealie stalks for cooking purposes. 
Shelling the corn is easily performed by the common 
American mealie-sheller; and four or five natives, properly 
directed and kept at work, can readily shell from twenty to 
five and twenty muids—sixty to sixty-five bushels—in a 
day, from dry ears. The cobs, stripped of the corn, afford 
excellent fuel, particularly where stoves are used, or for 
heating ovens. : 
The application of the Indian corn crop is, in this coun- 
try, almost as various and important as it is in North and 
South America ; for, firstly, a country family can begin to 
use it before the time of full harvest, since the tender ears, 
stripped of their jackets while green, roasted by a quick 
fire until the grain is browned, and eaten with a little fresh 
butter, or with salt, are nutritious; secondly, when the 
grain is riper and harder, the ears boiled in their leaves form 
a good and wholesome dish for dinner; or the grains, at 
that period of their growth, kept for a considerable time, 
and mixed with green kidney-beans, also dried, afford a 
fair accompaniment to meat, they having been first soaked 
for afew hours in water previous to their being cooked. 
The dry grain, ground into flour and meal of various 
degrees of quality, has many uses, and for horse-feeding, 
sheep-feeding, pig-feeding, and poultry-feeding, may con- 
stantly be made infinite service of. In England, the 
Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, and Norfolk cottagers make 
vast use of Indian corn for fattening the geese that reach 
such notedly heavy weights at Christmas time in the Lon- 
don market, and the people of Germany fatten poultry with 
it to a very considerable extent. 
Like other grain, mealies may be fermented, so as to 
produce beer; or may be distilled, and a very wholesome 
spirit obtained thereby. 
NEW SERIES.—VOL. I. O 
