60 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[February, 
A SETTLER’S PLUMPING MILL.— Drawn by R. E. Robinson. — Engraved for the American Agriculturist. 
terest in our correspondence with this veteran 
pomologist, bearing upon other controverted 
points to which we may refer at another time. 
In reading these letters in which the ripe expe¬ 
rience of a long life is expressed almost with 
diffidence, we could not help regretting the 
modesty which shrinks from the notoriety of 
publication, while hundreds, as soon as they 
get, or think they have, a solitary idea, make 
haste to rush into print with it. 
The Primitive Plumping Mill. 
The early settlers in this country who had 
no mills, as well as the pioneers of the present 
day, who are at a great distance from them, 
were, and still are, obliged to resort to various 
expedients to bring Indian com, their chief 
and generally only grain, into an eatable con¬ 
dition. Perhaps the simplest method of pre¬ 
paring the grain, is to make what is known as 
hulled corn; the corn is boiled in lye from 
wood ashes, until the hull or skin of the grain 
readily separates; it is then washed and stirred 
to remove the hulls, soaked in successive 
waters to remove all traces of the lye, and 
then boiled until fonder. Even at the present 
day the Mexican peasantry prepare their com 
in a similar manner; they remove the hull by 
the use of lye, and then instead of boiling the 
grain, they grind it to a paste on a stone called 
a metate, which is the chief article of furniture 
in every Mexican kitchen, (which usually in¬ 
cludes parlor and bed-room); this is a slab of 
hard stone, about a foot wide, and two feet 
long, elevated at one end by legs. The soaked 
grain is placed upon this, and by the use of a 
sort of stone rolling-pin moved briskly up and 
down, it is ground to a paste; this is then 
patted out into a thin cake, and quickly baked 
upon an earthen or iron plate, beneath which are 
live coals. These cakes are called tortillas, and 
are the staple bread all over the country; they 
are sometimes made of wheat, but generally of 
corn. This method of using com is purely 
Mexican, and no doubt derived by the Spanish 
settlers from the aborigines. While hulled 
com is pleasant as a variety, and is at the present 
day sold in New England towns as a luxury, it 
becomes very tiresome as a regular food, and a 
poor substitute for corn cakes or bread made 
from meal. To obtain meal when a grist mill 
could only be reached by long journeys through 
the woods, over roads that were little more 
than foot-paths, or by a long voyage in a canoe 
or dug-out, the early settlers had recourse to the 
simple contrivance shown in the engraving. 
This is called the plumping mill, (“plump : to 
fall suddenly or with violence,”) and is made 
by burning and digging out a cavity in a hard 
wood stump, until a rude mortar is formed ; 
then a long and heavy pestle made also of hard 
wood, is attached to a long spring pole, and 
thus is formed a rude machine to be worked by 
one-man power. A slow and tedious method 
of obtaining meal, but one which many hardy 
pioneers have been content to follow until a. 
better way could be found. It is a curious 
fact that the first patent granted in England, 
to the specifications of which drawings were 
attached, was for a kind of compound plump¬ 
ing mill, to be worked by horse or water-power, 
though some might find still more curious the 
fact that this invention was made by a woman. 
We have seen a copy of the original drawing 
at the Patent Office in Washington, which 
shows a row of 5 to 12 mortars, according to the 
kind of power used, the pestles were worked 
by a revolving shaft, the teeth upon which 
lifted the pestles and let them fall. The patent 
was granted in 1715, to “ Thomas Masters, of 
Pensilvania, Planter, his Execrs, Admrs, and As¬ 
signees, of the Sole Use and Benefit of A New 
Invencon, found out by Sybilla his Wife, for the 
Clearing and Curing the Indian Corn Grow¬ 
ing in the Severall Colonies in America, etc.” 
