How beautiful
to think of lean tough Yankee settlers, tough as gutta-percha,
with most occult unsubduable fire in their belly, steering over
the Western Mountains, to annihilate the jungle, and bring bacon
and corn out of it for the Posterity of Adam! The Pigs in about
a year eat up all the rattlesnakes for miles round: a most
judicious function on the part of the Pigs. Behind the Pigs
comes Jonathan with his all-conquering ploughshare,--glory to him
too! Oh, if we were not a set of Cant-ridden blockheads, there
is no _Myth_ of Athene or Herakles equal to this _fact;_--which I
suppose _will_ find its real "Poets" some day or other; when
once the Greek, Semitic, and multifarious other Cobwebs are swept
away a little! Well, we must wait.--For the rest, if this
skillful Naturalist and you will make any more experiments on
Indian Corn for us, might I not ask that you would try for a
method of preserving _the meal_ in a sound state for us?
Oatmeal, which would spoil directly too, is preserved all year by
kiln-drying the grain before it is ground,--parching it till it
is almost _brown,_ sometimes the Scotch Highlanders, by intense
parching, can keep their oatmeal good for a series of years.
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