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.