66 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS 
a boy busy in a field of young corn so sparse as to 
excite mirth. The boy looked up, and cheerily re- 
plied, "Oh, I am thinning the corn." And so he was! 
When the corn has been properly thinned, you will 
find but one stalk to a hill and the hills far apart, 
excepting in the river bottoms where the showing is 
better. Man ploughs the corn, but woman often 
hoes it, she and the children. The children begin to 
hoe at the age of eight, and you will often see them 
busy in the fields, both boys and girls — but it is not 
necessary to pity them, for they like it. 
The cornfield is ever present in the landscape, not 
only covering the valley bottoms, but lying precari- 
ously on the steepest slopes surrounded by the forest. 
Beans are often planted with the corn, where they 
climb the convenient stalks, but it is the corn one 
sees, and the corn which gives that odd domestic 
touch to the wild scenery of the Southern mountains. 
For corn is not only the principal food of the moun- 
taineer, but supplies as well that important bever- 
age, variously known as "corn- juice," "moonshine," 
"mountain-dew," "blockade," " brush whiskey," and 
in the outer world, ' ' corn-whiskey, ' ' which is extracted 
from the grain and surreptitiously distributed. 
Fortunately this important crop is able to defy 
the rigors of the summer and conquer, with man's 
help, the overwhelming army of weeds — or flowers ; 
for many of these wild growths could be called 
"weeds" only by a soulless farmer regardless of 
everything but crops. 
As summer advances, the compositae begin to 
