Morning journal and courier., 1892-09-17
and enthusiastic constituency would

| curious habit of collecting dried specimen of the leaf and carrying them about 1T herbariums. These they gradually destro! l by combustion, or even by masticetion and then immediately begin a search fol l more specimens It is said that @ man will even sell his birthright for them, but, l being secured, he again proceeds with great alacrity to destroy them. It is, however, asserted by some that this plant contains 6 | of which even its most devoted friends do l not deny. If this be true, as a national | heraldic device we will have none of it. If we adopt national flower we must have something indigenous, general in its growth, abundant, useful, stately and beautiful. Where shall we find these qual ifications united2 Not in @ single flower. We must take an entire plant, stalk, leaf, flower and fruit, to typify our nation "the union of many in one." The most worthy suggestion yet made for the maize or Indian corn. It answ ,rs every requirement, and symbolizes peace, pros. perity, labor and sustenance. It was here to greetus when we came, to offer us en- couragement and good cheer. The first thing of value found by the little party of sixteen Pilgrims who were exploring Cape Cod in November, 1920, was "divers fair Indian baskets filled with corn, some whereof was in ears, fair and good, of divers colors, which seemed to them very goodly sight, having seen none before; of which rarities they took some to carry to their friends on shipboard, like as the Israelites' spies brought from Eschol some of the good fruits of the land"
 It belongs to our literature since Nathaniel Morton made this and other mention of it in "New England's Me morisl" Joel Barlow, Connecticut boy, Yale graduate, minister, army chaplain, lawyer, politician, speculator and poet, when residing in France recalled the Yam kee cuisine with longing and wrote the in spired ode to "Hasty Pudding"
 Longfellow writes of it in 'The Song of Hiawatha" After the burial of Monds- min Hiawstha watched day by day beside his grave.
 .'Til at length a small, green feather
 From the earth shot slowly upward,
 Then another and another,
 And before the summer ended
 Stood the maize in all it's beauty,
 With it's shining robes around it,
 And its long, soft, yellow tresses"
 Summer passed and the west wind
 "Breathed his sighs o Ter all the landscape,
 From the Southland sent his ardors,
 Waited kisses warm and tender;
 And the maize field grew and ripened
 Till it stood in all the splendor
 Of it's garments green and yellow,
 Of It's tassels and its pumage,
 And the maizeears full and shining
 Cleaned from bursting sheaths of verdure." Then came the autumn and of this "new gift to the nations, which should be their food forever"
 "Changed the long, green leaves to yellow,
 And the soft and juicy kernels
 Green like wampun hard and yellow,
 Then the ripened ears he gathered,
 StripDed the withered huskS from Off them
 As he once had stripped the wrestler,
 Gave the first Feast of MondamiD,
 And made known unto the people
 This new gift of the Great Spirit"
 The story of blessing the corn fields and the merry huskiug time is charmingly de- scribed.
 Our beloved, late.lost Whittier also wrote pleasant poem of the corn -husking, and a spirited Corn Song that closes with
 'Let earth withhold her goodly root
 Let midew blight the rye,
 Give to the worm the orchards fruit,
 The wheat-field to the fly:
 But let the good old crop adorn
 The hills our fathers trod;
 Still let us, for his golden corn,
 Send up our thanks to God"
 Then it is of such universal growth, SO abundant, SO kindly in adapting itself to all conditional It supplants cotton as a southern staple; the great rich fields of the West, and the little stony farm of the East, are all sglow with it's tints of brown and yellow. It's beauty too will repay study and is full of suggestions to the artistic eye. AS a whole, in it's form and its varying color, we have nothing finer in our botanical world, or that better lends itself to the needs of decorative art. Taking all it's uses, it's gifts and graces into consideration, are we not justified in claiming for 1t the certain inalienable right to become our national embleml Edna Dean Proctor has summed up this whole matter in eloquent and inspiritinR style in her poem entitled "Columbia's Emblem" Its closing lines will help to bring this in sufficient plea for the maize to happy conclusion.
 1.-The rose may bloom for England,
 The lily for France unfold;
 Ireland may honor the shamrock,
 Scotland her thistle bold;
 But the shield of the great Republic
 The glory of the West,
 Shall bear stalk of the tasselled corn
 Of all our wealth the best.
 The arbutus and the godenrod
 The heart of the Forth may cheer,
 And the mountain laurel for Maryland
 1t3 royal clusters rear;
 And sasmine and magnolia
 The crest of the South adorn;
 But the wide Republics emblem
 Is the bounteous, golden Corn!"
 HILARY.