Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/82

72 as an observer are known to you. all, has brought together very interesting facts relative to the food-plants of our North American aborigines. Among the plants described by him there are a few which merit careful investigation. Against all of them, however, there lie the objections mentioned before, namely:

1. The long time required for their improvement, and—

2. The difficulty of making them acceptable to the community, involving—

3. The risk of total and mortifying failure.

In the notes to this address the more prominent of these are enumerated.

In 1854 the late Prof. Gray called attention to the remarkable relations which exist between the plants of Japan and those of our Eastern coast. You will remember that he not only proved that the plants of the two regions had a common origin, but also emphasized the fact that many species of the two countries are various cactaceæ; Yucca; cherries and many wild berries; Chenopodium album, etc. Psoralea esculenta=prairie potato, or bread-root. (Palmer in Agricultural Report, 1870, p. 402). The following from Catlin, ''loc. cit.'', i, p. 122: "Corn and dried meat are generally laid in in the fall, in sufficient quantities to support them through the winter. These are the principal articles of food during that long and inclement season; and, in addition to them, they oftentimes have in store great quantities of dried squashes, and dried 'pommes blanches,' a kind of turnip which grows in great abundance in those regions.… These are dried in great quantities and pounded into a sort of meal and cooked with dried meat and corn. Great quantities also are dried and laid away in store for the winter season, such as buffalo-berries, service-berries, strawberries, and wild plums. In addition to this we had the luxury of service-berries without stint; and the buffalo bushes, which are peiarulepeculiar [sic] to these northern regions, lined the banks of the river and the defiles in the bluffs, sometimes for miles together, forming almost impassable hedges, so loaded with the weight of their fruit that their boughs everywhere gracefully bending down or resting on the ground. This last shrub (Shepherdia), which may be said to be the most beautiful ornament that decks out the wild prairies, forms a striking contrast to the rest of the foliage, from the blue appearance of its leaves by which it can be distinguished for miles in distance. The fruit which it produces in such incredible profusion, hanging in clusters to every limb and to every twig, is about the size of ordinary currants and not unlike them in color and even in flavor; being exceedingly acid, almost unpalatable, until they are bitten by frost of autumn, when they are sweetened and their flavor delicious, having to the taste much the character of grapes, and I am almost fain to think would produce excellent wine." (George Catlin's Illustrations and Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians, p. 72, vol. i.) For much relative to the food of our aborigines, especially of the Western coast, consult The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America. By H. H. Bancroft. New York, 1875. The following from vol. i, p. 538, indicates that inaccuracies have crept into the work: "From the earliest information we have of these nations" (the author is speaking of the New Mexicans), "they are known to have been tillers of the soil; and though the implements used and their methods of cultivation were both simple and primitive, cotton, corn, wheat, beans, and many varieties of fruits which constituted their principal food were raised in abundance." Wheat was not grown on the American continent until after the landing of the first explorers.