FIRMITY AND HOMINY.

There are two ancient very wholesome and pleasant dishes, which are much used in the states south of Pennsylvania, to which the middle and northern states have not yet paid sufficient attention. The first called FIRMITY, is made of WHEAT. The second, called HOMINY, is made of Indian corn, or MAIZE. The grains of wheat and Indian corn are prepared by beating in the same manner in a wooden mortar, with an iron pestle, filed in crosses or ridges at the bottom, like a modern stamp or seal for letters.

To make the firmity mortar, or hominy mortar, select a tree of from two feet to two feet and one half in diameter. Cut off a length (or piece as nearly as possible cylindrical) of about the height of a man's waistband from the ground. Let an iron hoop be well secured on and around each of the ends, to bind and keep the wood together. Then make a hole at each end of this cut of wood, like the cavity of a common mortar, as wide as the wood will admit, at top, and narrowing to a blunt point at the bottom. Both cavities are to be made alike, so that in fact, in the one cylindrical piece of wood, there will be two mortars; one in and at each end. These may be used indiscriminately for wheat or firmity, or for Indian corn or hominy, and will occasion the utensil to last longer.—It will be proper not to have the bottoms of the two mortars, or mortar holes, so deep as to endanger the driving a hole from one into the other, which would destroy the use of both. When the mortar is thus well made, a moderate quantity of wheat, to make firmity, is to be put into the mortar, in the upper part, as it stands on the end, and the grain is to be moistened with a little warm water, to make the skin or bran come off easily and perfectly, by the beating. The pestle is then to be used by a man so as, by striking in among the grains of wheat, from the top to the bottom of the parcel, from time to time, and repeatedly, to skin the grains of wheat, which it will do effectually. When this is done, the grains are to be separated from the hulls or bran, by a sieve large enough to let the wheat through and keep out the bran or skin. When this has been done, the parcel is spread to dry, on a clean coarse linen or cotton cloth. The proper quantity is put into a large family pot, with a sufficient quantity of water to boil it, and to be evaporated by a steady simmering heat from 8 or 9 in the evening till 9 or 10 next morning. Thus the firmity will be made into a large mass of white mixture of paste or pulp of wheat, and of whole wheat. This is to be taken out in portions, as wanted to make a mess, boiled with skim or common milk, as thick as pea-soup or rice-milk, and sweetened to the taste. A small lump of butter, of the size of a nutmeg, is often put into the tureen or soup-dish of firmity, at the moment when it is served up hot. Some use a little nutmeg and a very little salt. Firmity is used after the meat meal, which need be but small when there is firmity for dinner, for it is a very hearty and pleasant food. At supper there is no occasion for meat.

Hominy is prepared in like manner, except that it is served up without milk, and that it is diluted moderately with hot water. A little butter and salt may be added; and on following days hominy is often fried in a large cake to the size of the pan.—Hominy, in every form and state, is very good with the gravy of roasted beef, mutton, lamb, and poultry, steaks, chops, and cutlets.

It is believed, that wheat and Indian corn are much more wholesome in firmity and hominy, than in bread or pone. No yeast is required.—Great quantities of grain might be used in this way. Every thing that employs our grain, which is becoming redundant, is an object worthy of consideration and attention. A great number of the best living and most expensive families in Philadelphia, from Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia, use hominy and firmity with the greatest relish; and if suitable mortars were sent thither for sale, the use of this food would increase.

FOR THE RURAL MAGAZINE.

Weeds, and larger growths, which interfere with cultivation or impoverish the ground, should be cut down or pulled up, before the seed ripens, in August, which prevents their growing in a following year. Weeds are the successful rivals of grain, garden vegetables, and grass.

Now is the BUILDING season. All our country houses and places for work, should be built on the south and west sides of swamps, marshes, ponds, and other fresh waters, on account of health; and not on the north or east sides of any such wet or watery places. The summer winds blow from the south and west, and carry the unwholesome vapours, exhaled from those fresh waters, from places on their south and west sides, to places on the north and east sides, preserving the people's health.

White covers of linen, cotton, or even paper, to the hats of people working in the fields, fishing, fowling, travelling, &c. protect them from morbid or sickening strokes of the sun. This is an old practice among the judicious Swiss.

Now, when all the waters are becoming low, we should observe the places for tapping swamps, marshes, and ponds. By cutting a drain to draw off the water in its low state, in August, we begin to reclaim our lands from the marsh and swamp.—The ground becomes firmer to haul off the wood and timber in the cutting season. Wet grounds should be drained, before they are cleared of their wood. For, if they are freed from trees, in their wet state, the sun produces sickening and often fatal evaporations. This is true in France, Germany, Holland, and the marshy parts of England, though several degrees further north than the United States.

Dry Rot.—This destructive enemy of building, which generally commences its ravages in the cellars, may be prevented or checked, by whitewashing them yearly, mixing copperas with it to give it a yellow hue.

Communicated for the Rural Magazine.

ABSTRACTS

From the IVth volume of the Memoirs of the Philadelphia Agricultural Society; Richard Peters, President; Wm. Tilghman, James Mease, George Logan and Robert Coleman, Vice Presidents; Roberts Vaux, Secretary.

1. The Sesamum Orientale or Be-ne, written Bene, for making oil of the seed, from Bengal, Africa, Georgia, and the Mississippi. See Archives of Useful Knowledge, by Dr. Mease; Encyclopædia Britanica; Accounts of East India Agriculture, &c. It is planted in the end of April and gathered in the end of September, in 32° N. lat.; raised also in 34° 50' N. lat. The oil is fine for salad, and all the other uses of olive oil, and may be extracted, as is the flax-seed oil, or by boiling water, to the top of which it will rise, and may be skimmed, and bottled or put into casks. It is very common on the west coast of Africa, and grows to most advantage on poor, sandy hills. It is said never to become rancid, but to improve with age. [Letter of Thomas M. Forman, Esq. Rose Hill, near Savington, Cecil, Md.] In the same letter is an account of Napoleon or Crawford RYE. It is described to grow very tall, having a solid stalk, probably capable of resisting the fly, like Jethro Tull's solid-stalked wheat. This grain is said to improve in the Cecil county soil and climate.

2. Plan of FENCES of living trees for posts, such as the Sugar Maple, and wire for rails; by White & Hazard, Whitestown, Philadelphia county, lowest falls of Schuylkill. Common fence for 100 acres, for 50 years, costs $3,080. Do. of wire fence for 50 years, costs $1,751. Add profit on trees, such as American black Walnut, curled or sugar Maple, Mulberry, Apple, (244 trees producing annually, at one dollar, $244) Buttonwoods, &c. which the projectors make to produce $14,098, in fifty years. Interest on annual produce sufficient to keep such wire and live-tree fence in repair, from the time of completion for ever. Other orchard lands can be spared. These fences are good against the worst cows;—they are easy to repair. Inquire at R. Watkin's tavern, at the falls of Schuylkill.

3. Accounts of LIME and KILNS, and cooking STOVES, in Spain; by Anthony Morris, Esq. formerly of Philadelphia, now of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, A. D. 1816.—In burning lime, the Spanish peasants use only the small Shrub or brush wood, not larger than a man's little finger to the size of a pipe stem. The kiln is like ours in Whitemarsh, &c. except that the top of the kiln is very little above the surface of the ground, and is covered with clay to confine the heat. The arch within is of such height as to give the full benefit of all the flame of those dry, light materials. The Spanish lime, like our best Pennsylvania lime, is very good. The Spanish practice is recommended, where lime stone is plenty, wood scarce, and brush, trash and weeds so abundant as to impede or injure culture. In the same letter is a cheap method, as to fuel, for heating irons; and an economical kitchen, as to fire, for cooking.

4. A letter from Mr. Jefferson, concerning the success of the Gypsum, or Plaster of Paris, in Albemarle, Virginia, 200 miles from the sea-coast; also concerning improved hill ploughing, by his ingenious son-in-law, Col. Thomas M. Randolph.[3]

5. An American Plough, approved in England; as is our Cradling Scythe.

6. Also, further notice of the Mangel Wurtzel, for the culture of which see the Philadelphia Society's Memoirs, vol. III. Seed of a new kind, called the orange-coloured Mangel Wurtzel, has been sent to President Peters by Robert Barclay, Esq. grandson to the old Apologist of Uri. The progress in the culture of this root, in Great Britain, is great. Mr. Peters thinks the mottled kind best, and recommends the greatest care as to seed. It appears in other parts of this volume that 60 to 90 tons of Mangel Wurtzel, or Scarcity Root, or the improved Beet, have been produced by an acre.

5. In pages 107, 108, 109 and 110, are some interesting notices of the Mangel Wurtzel, or Scarcity or Beet root, by Mr. Isaac C. Jones, of Philadelphia. It appears that this gentleman was led into some experiments, after an entire city occupation of 20 years, by reading some interesting accounts of such experiments in the European books. In April, 1816, a piece of ground, not quite one fifth of an acre, was planted with the seeds, in parallel rows, of two feet three or four inches one way, by one foot the other. On gathering the crop in November, 1816, it was found that it weighed 8180 pounds, and that the weight of the leaves, pulled off from those roots, at different times through the season, was 5,595 pounds. They would have been more, but as the season of 1816 was uncommonly dry, the pulling was omitted for some weeks. This plant is very valuable for farm stock, and most so for milch cows. The leaves are excellent through the summer, and the cut or chopped root through the winter, when dry food is used. The Mangel Wurtzel, or Scarcity root or improved Beet, is excellent for the table, and is preferred by Mr. Jones' family to the red or garden beets, which are abundant and very fine in the Philadelphia market. The same gentleman raised in 1816, on 23 square poles (²³⁄₁₆₀ths of an acre,) 110 bushels of the long or orange Carrot root, being at the rate of nearly 800 bushels to the acre. A bushel of those Carrots (cut with an approved instrument in the form of an S) weighed 47 lbs., and a bushel of the Mangel Wurtzel, cut in like manner, weighed 55 lbs. The Carrots produced 800 bushels, and the Mangel Wurtzel, at this rate, 900 bushels to the acre, each in the uncut state. As he planted the Mangel Wurtzel, Mr. Jones found it easy to dress with the plough and one horse. The Carrots, when up, require the hoe and the hand altogether. It appears, that the seeds of this plant, about which the utmost care is necessary, may be had of John S. Skinner, Esq. Baltimore, and Mr. M'Mahon, Philadelphia, and of the seedsmen in New York, Hartford, Boston, &c. The Mangel Wurtzel fell into some disrepute in England, about the year 1810, but the marchioness of Salisbury revived it. It was introduced into Ireland, in 1787, by seed from Dr. Letsom, of London, but the good qualities not being known, nor the culture, it fell into disuse in Ireland also. But a machine for the planting of it was invented by Mr. Edward Linsey, and now it is extensively cultivated there and much approved. The leaves produce two or more crops in the north of Ireland in summer and autumn, and those leaves and the roots in winter are deemed excellent for milch and beef cattle, in that great butter country. Irish sowing time is April and May. Preparation the same as for turnips and potatoes: two drills to be opened two feet apart; sufficient dung to be used, according to the state and quality of the ground. Then cover the dung with the double mould board plough, at once, or the single plough at twice, by ridging them up as high as can be well done, with a man shovelling between the drills, right and left, smoothing the surface of the dung, which will leave the ridge about a space of ten or twelve inches broad. This complete method of fallowing will repay the trouble of shovelling, by raising a full proportion of earth under the roots. When the ground is thus completely prepared, two boys or girls can sow from two to three acres per day. After sowing, it should be well rolled, which completes the process.

The crop is afterwards to be treated in the same manner as turnips or potatoes, by putting to and taking off mould, &c. After the roots have been raised, the ground is in fine order for wheat or any other crop.

Example of Cultivation.—Wolf M'Neil, Esq. Ireland, sowed one acre; from the leaves, fed 40 pigs through the seasons of last summer and fall; then gathered 84 tons of roots.—On these fed nine cows and five calves during winter, and had, on 22d April, 1815, eight tons remaining, besides 100 roots, which he transplanted for securing good seed, an all-important object in this culture.

(To be continued.)

[We recommend to our readers the purchase and study of "The Code of Agriculture," written by Sir John Sinclair, the first president of the public British Board of Agriculture. London edition, about 612 pages in one octavo volume; also, American Hartford edition, Connecticut. It is probably the first farmer's manual, or handbook, extant in our language, and was concocted by the labours of 26 years, and with the aid of 1000 persons.]