AUTUMN 75 
can be, it never Is here in the mountains. It is put 
into jugs and provides the principal "sweetening" 
of the family. 
Man is so close to the soil here that he recognizes 
the relationship. He sees his bread — and molasses 
— come directly from the earth. He loves the land, 
and the ambition of every youth is to possess a little 
farm of his own. In the wild forest he clears a place, 
plants the corn, cultivates it, watches it grow, 
gathers in the harvest, grinds the meal and makes 
the bread, most of these things being done in the 
open air. And there is no hurry. He feels the sun 
and the wind, he looks into the forest and is not 
afraid, neither is he unhappy. The cornfield is 
almost the boundary of his desires. He sells corn, or 
its equivalent in "blockade," for money with which 
to supply his needs. He fattens his pigs on corn and 
with it feeds the poultry. The mule and the horse 
eat corn, knowing no other grain. It is fed to them 
on the cob, since shelling corn for an animal able to 
shell it for himself would be a waste of time. 
Although the corn is the hope of the farmer, one 
sees an occasional oat- field, and sometimes a field of 
wheat or rye, but these seem to have been sown for 
the purpose of beautifying the landscape, the red 
soil showing through the scattering blue or green 
stalks with pleasing effect. In some valleys of the 
higher mountains these grains may be raised with 
profit, but on the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge 
corn is the safer crop; although the people have a 
beautiful faith in the possibilities of their land, one 
