He comes to the
spot where he means to make his cookery, makes a large wood fire upon
the ground, which soon consumes every thing combustible beneath, and
produces a large heap of coals. While the fire is preparing itself, the
Yankee takes a little wooden or tin bowl (many a one has done it in the
crown of his hat), in which he mixes up a sufficient quantity of his
meal with water, and forms it into a cake of about a couple of inches
thick. With a pole he then draws the fire open, and lays the cake down
upon where the centre of the fire was. To avoid burning, he rakes some
ashes over the cake first; he then rakes on a suitable quantity of the
live embers, and his cake is cooked in a short space of time." According
to Mr. Cobbett, he grew _ninety-five_ bushels of corn on one acre of
ground; reckoning the value of this corn equal to bad and stale samples
of wheat, which, at the time Mr. Cobbett was writing, was selling at
45_s_. the quarter, Mr. Cobbett's crop would be worth nearly 27_l_. the
acre, three times, as he says, that of the average crop of wheat this
same year.
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