Evening star., 1947-09-01

This is land where many fertile areas fill
the cornucopia. Still it is strange that garden
spot like Western New York should be unsung.
As boy I took the lushness of its fields for
granted-as 1o-year old Henry Adams did his
family. He thought other families had a living
grandfather who had been President. thought
that all America must be such combinations of
field and garden, dairy and vineyard.
Revisited, it is of such glory that even
childish acceptance is hard to understand.
Western New York begins at the Finger Lakes,
home of Great Western and Gold Seal cham
pagnes which the French honored with inn
pressive medals at the Paris exhibition. 1t is
bordered by the Great Lakes of Ontario and
Erie and their famed connection, the Niagara.
This wide river flows always brimful to the
point where it falls over the great cataract
and seethes the rest of its way through its
winding gorge. 1t includes the city of Roch-
ester in the valley of the Genesee. where
Representative former Senator) Jimmy Wads-
worth has suzerainty over 10000 acres decided
his ancestor by royal grant. The towers of
Buffalos office buildings and grain elevators
rise on corner of its wide prairie, much Of
which was sold for Dutch spectators by the
grandfather of Arthur Brisbane, from whom
he inherited his famed realty acumen. The
endless orchards of this land produce, among
others, the Duchess apple for tart August pies.
Ginseng, Spinach and Grapes.
South of Buffalo they still grow ginseng for
the China trade. The truck gardens of Eden,
whose plots have sprinkler systems more elab-
crate than the Washington Mali, produce
tender vegetables from the first spinach of
April until the heavy frosts. Terrace by
4f~ ~I
stepping down to the Erie Shore. Their big
blue punches try to hide behind the leaves.
Each grape is lightly powdered by nature. Like
ladies' faces they seem to avoid a shiny ap-
pearance. No wine grapes these-they will be
harvested late this month and sold by the
ton to the grape juice factories at Westfield
Ten miles over the hills from the Erie shore is
Lake Chautauqua, an Eastern headwater of
the Mississippi, site of the Methodist summer
assembly from which the movement of bringing
the lyceum to rural areas gets its name. A
few country cheese factories remain in this
country whose honest product Is full-flavored,
unlike the cheeSeS processed with milk solids.
But the finest product of Western New York
is not its cheeses, nor its champagne grapes
nor even its Northern Spy apples. 1t is a
development of this century-the Golden
Bantam corn.
AS the propretors of the roadside stands
strip the big ears for you (the bantam size OF
the ear was corrected years ago., they assure
you the corn was picked only an hour before
and they advise you to hurry home and put
it in boiling water for just six minutes Ears
just short of full development are preferred.
They are so tender that wearers Of both upper
and lower dentures can nibble them clean. The
corn enthusiast neglects other elements OF the
meal. He rolls the ear of hot corn on pound
OF butter-leaves on his plate six or eight cobs
piled like cordwood The flavor of the milky
content of each kernel suggests going back for
more until the safety of fullness intervenes.
The showplace of the produce OF this garden.
spot is the Erie County Fair. 1t has been held