The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-12-10
GAVE THEM sAaAMITTEE.
Indian Hospitality to First White
 Explorers of the Purchase.

SAPtOAVA0 OA tAAC q 0AS ASAasSS'
 St. Louis Republic.
 After DeSoto and his followers. the first
 corn eaten by white men upon the soil Of
 the Louisiana Purchase was that which
 Louis Joliet and Pere Jacques Marquette
 received from a hospitable hand of In-
 dlsns whose village lay upon the banks
 of small stream" supposed to be the
 Des Moines. On June 25, 1873. as the ex-
 plorer and his prit stly companion ana
 historian were padding down the Mis-
 sissippi on their voyage of discovery they
 saw tracks of men on the bank some
 where near the southern end of what Is
 now Iowa. Leaving their canoe in charge
 of the five boatmen they followed the
 tracks to the village. where they were well received.
 A feast was spread for them, of which
 the pieces de resistance" were saga mittee." boiled dog. dried buffalo meat
 and other delicacies relish d by the In dian palate. For the boiled dog the guests could not conceal their disgust, and 1t was considerably removed from the
 board. But they ate sufficiently of the buffalo meat as we'll as of the sagamit- tee, which was nothing more nor less | than cornmeal mush favored with grease: The historian does not nominate the kind | of grease that the Indians put into their | much. Surely the dish was not so appe- tizing as the cracked-corn hominy
 which. softened with fresh Jersey butter. is such. a favorite of many a dainty | breakfast table among the Southern rs
 and the Jerseymen, but the explorers nta 1t with good appetite.
 When they got down into the Arkansas country they had more sagamittee from | the Indians, and roasting ears and wa | termelons a plenty. The wat rmelon Is | native to Africa, but these Indians show | ed their appreciation of good thing by | getting the seed from Spanish or English | colonists and planting them.
 The corn crop of the Louisiana country | is larger now than 1t was tn, n, and 1t is
 put to more diversified and vastly most
 profitable uses. In the pioneer days It
 possessed the Great Valley. It was h | only breadstuff carried among their sup plies by Joliet and Marquette. Tn
 French settlers at Old Kask iskia reject,
 ed 1t as victuals fit only for cattle and | swine. The men who crossed the All = ghanies with Boone and Sevier and Rob- | ertson and Shelby, as well as those who came into Ohio and Kentucky higher up,
 travelled and fought Indians often wi h
 no other supplies than sack of parched | corn and little bag of salt per man:
 Their powder horns, bullet pouches and
 turkey, bear. and deer meat they neede d. In these days of commercial figures and figuring. 1t is of special interest to learn from the statistlcian of the Treas ury at Washington that in good year
 the States and Territories of the Lou | isiana Purchase make 1000, 00.000 bush | of corn, which Is just about half, or a l little more than half, of the American l crop f1dppliy LHlS HudhtttJ
 of grain is not now consumed in the | form of sagamittee and roasting-ears Aluch of 1t goes to feed the mules and | the men who make the great cotton crop | of the South. Vast quantities of 1t go in- | to beef, pork. and poultry that feed tn mouths of the dense manufacturing and | commercial population of the Northeast l ern seaboard States.
 Rv means of corn America gives pow | erful aid and comfort to Europe. and W, | are ourselves somewhat comforted in re- | turn Of corn and cornm al we sen' | ADi oad last year some $9O,OOO,OOO worth | md got the money. Then there are the | more comforting and also more profitable | and It's compounds, saucage and sausage | meats. butter, cheese, and other anim. Il | products the basis of which Is mainly l corn. Of these we blessed the outside world with an abundance that brought | nearly S2O0 900, 900 into American pockets. | Half of it all comes out of the soil or the Louisiana Purchase.
 Iowa, on whose soil Joliet and Mar. | auptte were fed sag mittee by the Him l Indians, is the greatest of all corn | States. Nine-tenths of all th corn grow n
 west of the Mississippi comes out or the soil of Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Mis- Snri IlHnoi is the only State east of l the river that turns out corn croH 1 eoualling or surpassing that of any on States;7 1t Is close between her
 Corn is the mightlest of all the dynamic force- of America. It make us happy and nrosperous in peace. powerful In war. Great is corn, great Is the Lou- | 1 jana Purchase country, the natural home of corn.