Still more interesting is the barrel of genuine Corn ears,--
Indian Cobs of edible grain, from the Barn of Emerson himself!
It came all safe and right, according to your charitable program;
without cost or trouble to us of any kind; not without curious
interest and satisfaction! The recipes contained in the
precedent letter, duly weighed by the competent jury of
housewives (at least by my own Wife and Lady Ashburton), were
judged to be of decided promise, reasonable-looking every one of
them; and now that the stuff itself is come, I am happy to
assure you that it forms a new epoch for us all in the Maize
department: we find the grain _sweet,_ among the sweetest, with
a touch even of the taste of _nuts_ in it, and profess with
contrition that properly we have never tasted Indian Corn before.
Millers of due faculty (with millstones of _iron_) being scarce
in the Cockney region, and even cooks liable to err, the
Ashburtons have on their resources undertaken the brunt of the
problem one of their own Surrey or Hampshire millers is to grind
the stuff, and their own cook, a Frenchman commander of a whole
squadron, is to undertake the dressing according to the rules.
Yesterday the Barrel went off to their country place in Surrey,--
a small Bag of select ears being retained here, for our own
private experimenting;--and so by and by we shall see what comes
of it.--I on my side have already drawn up a fit proclamation of
the excellences of this invaluable corn, and admonitions as to
the benighted state of English eaters in regard to it;--to appear
in _Fraser's Magazine,_ or I know not where, very soon. It is
really a small contribution towards World-History, this small act
of yours and ours: there is no doubt to me, now that I taste the
real grain, but all Europe will henceforth have to rely more and
more upon your Western Valleys and this article. 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;_--wh