(_Concluded from page 79._)
The first operation on the grown plants is that of topping; this is the
planter's _hay_ harvest; the tops serve for chaff, for dry food instead
of hay, for fodder. They are cut off above the ears, collected by a cart
going along the intervals or roads, and stacked for winter use. Mr.
Cobbett's harvest of tops was not so successful as it might have been:
this arose from his absence at the favourable opportunity for stacking.
The ears of corn are stripped off when the grain is hard, and carried in
carts to the barns, and placed in corn cribs adapted for the purpose.
The grains are taken off the pithy cylinder on which they grow, by being
rubbed or scraped on a piece of iron: in America a bayonet (a weapon
called by the Yankees _Uncle George's toasting fork_) is invariably used
for the purpose: the cylinder, now bared of its grain, is called the
_cobb_. The delicate leaves by which the ear is enveloped is, as has
been mentioned, called the husk; it may be used for the stuffing of
beds: Mr. Cobbett has converted some of it even into paper.
In Mr. Cobbett's sanguine temperament the uses to which the grain
is applicable are wonderfully numerous and important. Under the heads
of pig-feeding, sheep-feeding, and cow-feeding, poultry-feeding,
and horse-feeding, he gives an account of his own experiments and
observations. Of the thriving condition of the American horses Cobbett
gives an example in his amusing vein, and by a trial made at his own
farm in Long Island, he proved that neither their strength nor speed
deteriorates on corn.
The branch of man-feeding is, of course, an important department of the
subject. The forms in which it is made palatable and nutritious are
numerous, and appear under names of American origin that will sound
strange in the English ear. Before the corn is ripe it is frequently
roasted in the state of green ears. "When the whole of the grains are
brown, you lay them in a dish and put them upon the table; they are so
many little bags of roasted milk, the sweetest that can be imagined, or,
rather, are of the most delightful taste. You leave a little tail of the
ear, two inches long, or thereabouts, to turn it and handle it by. You
take a thin piece of butter, which will cling to the knife on one side,
while you gently rub it over the ear from the other side; then the ear
is buttered: then you take a little salt according to your fancy, and
sprinkle it over the ear: you then take the tail of the ear in one hand,
and bite the grains off the cobb." In the shape of _porridge_ the corn
is called _suppawn_.
_Mush_ is another form of the corn meal; Mr. Cobbett says, "it is not a
word to squall out over a piano-forte," "but it is a very good word, and
a real English word." It seems to mean something which is half pudding,
half porridge. _Homany_ is the shape in which the corn meal is generally
used in the southern states of America, but Mr. Cobbett has never seen
it. _Samp_ is the corn skinned, as we shell oats, or make pearl barley;
it is then boiled with pork or other meat, as we boil peas. It is in
fact corn soup, superior to all preparations of pulse, on account of
their indigestible qualities.
The corn flour is not so adhesive as the wheat flour; it is consequently
not so well adapted to puddings and bread-making: nevertheless, Mr.
Cobbett contrives to show that his corn can make both inimitably; but in
respect of cakes there are no cakes in the world like the corn-cakes of
America. They have the additional merit of being made in a minute: "A
Yankee will set hunger at defiance if you turn him into a wilderness
with a flint and steel, and a bag of corn-meal or flour. He comes to the
spot where he means to make his cookery, makes a large wood fire upon
the ground, which soon consumes every thing combustible beneath, and
produces a large heap of coals. While the fire is preparing itself, the
Yankee takes a little wooden or tin bowl (many a one has done it in the
crown of his hat), in which he mixes up a sufficient quantity of his
meal with water, and forms it into a cake of about a couple of inches
thick. With a pole he then draws the fire open, and lays the cake down
upon where the centre of the fire was. To avoid burning, he rakes some
ashes over the cake first; he then rakes on a suitable quantity of the
live embers, and his cake is cooked in a short space of time." According
to Mr. Cobbett, he grew _ninety-five_ bushels of corn on one acre of
ground; reckoning the value of this corn equal to bad and stale samples
of wheat, which, at the time Mr. Cobbett was writing, was selling at
45_s_. the quarter, Mr. Cobbett's crop would be worth nearly 27_l_. the
acre, three times, as he says, that of the average crop of wheat this
same year. But in order to compare the worth of this crop with that of
others, there are several considerations to be entered into besides
this; these it is needless to say, Mr. Cobbett shows are wholly in
favour of Cobbett's corn. However this may be, and even making a large
allowance for the determination of the writer to see every thing he
loves _couleur de rose_, we think there can be little doubt of this
fact, that he has made out a case for experiment, and still more, that
they who have not made the experiment, are not entitled either to
distrust or to gainsay his assertions. It should be observed, that there
are two branches in Mr. Cobbett's argument; he maintains that his
variety of Indian corn may be grown in this country: but should this not
be confirmed by more general experiments, still his praise of the plant,
as a valuable substitute for wheat, and even its superior applicability
to domestic purposes, demand the same attention as before; for if it may
be grown, it may be imported, as from Canada, without the imposition of
a burthensome duty.
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