"On the frontier the diet was necessarily plain and homely, but exceedingly abundant and nutritive. The Goshen of America[52] furnished the richest milk, the finest butter, and the most savory and delicious meats. In their rude cabins, with their scanty and inartificial furniture, no people ever enjoyed in wholesome food a greater variety, or a superior quality of the necessaries of life. For bread, the Indian corn was exclusively used. It was not till 1790 that the settlers on the rich bottoms of Cumberland and Nollichucky discovered the remarkable adaptation of the soil and climate of Tennessee to the production of this grain. Emigrants from James River, the Catawba, and the Santee, were surprised at the amount and quality of the corn crops, surpassing greatly the best results of agricultural labor and care in the Atlantic States. This superiority still exists, and Tennessee, by the census of 1850, was _the_ corn State. Of all the farinacea, corn is best adapted to the condition of a pioneer people; and if idolatry is at all justifiable, Ceres, or certainly the Goddess of Indian corn, should have had a temple and a worshipers among the pioneers of Tennessee. Without that grain, the frontier settlements could not have been formed and maintained. It is the most certain crop--requires the least preparation of the ground--is most congenial to a virgin soil--needs not only the least amount of labor in its culture, but comes to maturity in the shortest time. The pith of the matured stalk of the corn is esculent and nutritious; and the stalk itself, compressed between rollers, furnishes what is known as corn-stalk molasses."