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· CHAPTER IV CORN Planting Corn planting began the second month after sunflower-seed was planted, that is in May; and it lasted about a month. It sometimes continued pretty well into June, but not later than that; for the sun then begins to go back into the south, and men began to tell eagle-hunting stories. We knew when corn planting time came by observing the leaves of the wild gooseberry bushes. This bush is the first of the woods to leaf in the spring. Old women of the village were going to the woods daily to gather fire wood; and when they saw that the wild gooseberry bushes were almost in full leaf, they said, "It is time for you to begin planting corn!" Corn was planted each year in the same hills. Around each of the old and dead hills I loosened the soil with my hoe, first pulling up the old, dead roots of the previous year's plants; these dead roots, as they collected, were raked off with other refuse to one end of the field outside of the cultivated ground, to be burned. This pulling up of the dead roots and working around the old hill with the hoe, left the soil soft and loose for the space of about eighteen inches in diameter; and in this soft soil I planted the corn in this manner: I stooped over, and with fingers of both hands I raked away the loose soil for a bed for the seed; and with my fingers I even stirred the soil around with a circular motion to make the bed perfectly level so that the seeds would all lie at the same depth. A small vessel, usually a wooden bowl, at my feet held the seed corn. With my right hand I took a small handful of the corn, quickly transferring half of it to my left hand; still stooping over, and plying both hands at the same time, I pressed the grains a half inch into the soil with my thumbs, planting two grains at a time, one with each hand. I planted about six to eight grains in a hilll (figure 7). Then with my hands I raked the earth over the planted grains unti.l the seed lay I Buffalobird-woman says she planted six to eight kernels to a hill. Just what pattern she used she could not tell until she went out with a handful of seed and planted a few hills to revive her memory. The three patterns shown in figure 7 will show how she laid the grains in the bottom of the several hills. -GILilli:RT L. WILSON Figure 7 22 CORN 23 about the length of my fingers under the soil. Finally I patted the hill firm with my palms. The space within the hill in which the seed kernels were planted should be about nine inches in diameter; but the completed hill should nearly cover the space broken up by the hoe. The corn hills I planted well apart, because later, in hilling up, I would need room to draw earth from all directions over the roots to protect them from the sun, that they might not dry out. Corn planted in hills too close together would have small ears and fewer of them; and the stalks of the plants would be weak, and often dried out. If the corn hills were so close together that the plants when they grew up, touched each other, we called them "smell-each-othcr"; and v·te knew that the ears they bore would not be plump nor large. A Morning's Planting We Hidatsa women were early risers in the planting season; it was my habit to be up before sunrise, while the air was cool, for we thought this the best time for garden work. Having arrived at the field I would begin one hill, preparing it, as I have said, with my hoe; and so for ten rows each as long as from this spot to yonder fence-about thirty yards; the rows were about four feet apart, and the hills stood about the same distance apart in the row. The hills all prepared, I went back and planted them, patting down each with my palms, as described. Planting corn thus by hand was slow work; but by ten o'clock the morning's work was done, and I was tired and ready to go home for my breakfast and...

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