a material extensively used in arts and manufactures.

In addition to starch, the Oswego starch-factory produces from Indian
corn a fecula, peculiarly adapted to culinary purposes, presenting to
our domestic economy one of the most acceptable, pure, and nutritious
articles of food. Already has it become an indispensable household
article, and is consumed largely at home and abroad. The factory,
though in its infancy, consumes annually 150,000 bushels of corn,
equal to about nine millions of pounds in weight. Hitherto the
quantities of starch used for laundry purposes and in the
manufactories of America, have been produced from costly wheats,
though it may be found in many vegetable substances, such as potatoes,
the horse chesnut and other seeds. In England, where breadstuffs,
particularly wheat, have been raised in quantities inadequate to the
demand for food, attempts have been made to convert the viscid matter
of lichens into a gum, for the use of calico printers, paper-makers,
and ink makers; for the stiffening of silks, crapes, and the endless
variety of dry goods, which, by means of these gums or starch, are
made to appear of greater consistency. Most of these attempts had
partial success, yet the making of starch from wheat has not been
arrested.

The Oswego starch factory has happily introduced the use of Indian
corn, as a grain producing a larger proportion of pure amylaceous
properties than any other known vegetable substance, proffering to the
American manufacturer another economic advantage, sustaining, in a
most legitimate matter, sound rivalry and competition with all the
world. I am not aware whether the Oswego factory has converted its
starch into gum--a process easily accomplished by heat, and thus
rendered soluble in cold water, which cannot be done while in its
condition of starch. Here is another result of vast importance
derivable from Indian corn; and we can well conceive that, in a short
period of time, the advantages now derived from the production of corn
starch, may have grown into a national benefit.

Rice (according to Prof. Solly) contains on an average about 84 per
cent of starch; but till comparatively a few years ago, no starch was
manufactured from it, notwithstanding its low price, and the large
quantity of starch which exists in it. The reason of this was, that
the old process of fermentation, by means of which starch is procured
from grain, was not found to be applicable to rice; an