ro LANGUAGE AND 
country whose soil bears plenteous crops of this 
in-every-way appropriate symbol of abundance , 
can afford 'to disregard the pretensions of all 
rival nations which found their claims to wealth 
merely upon the strength of their mineral 
riches. 
“ Ceres, the goddess of the harvest, bears 
A nodding garland of the ripened ears, 
Betokening prosperous days.” 
Ceres was the Goddess of Corn, as indeed her 
name signifies. She was usually represented as 
a beautiful woman, crowned with ears of corn, 
a wheatsheaf at her side, and the Cornucopia, 
or horn of plenty, in her hand. In commemo¬ 
ration of the abduction of her daughter Pro¬ 
serpine by Pluto, a festival was annually held 
about the beginning of harvest, and another 
celebration in remembrance of the search for 
her at the time of sowing the corn. During 
the search of Ceres for her daughter, the earth 
was left quite uncultivated; but on her return 
she gave instructions to her favorite, Triptole- 
mus, how to cultivate the ground and superin¬ 
tend corn and harvests. 
It has been said that an entire straw symbol¬ 
ized union , and the breaking of a straw rupture. 
The antiquity of this latter emblem is traced 
b*ck to a very early period. 
