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Show Little fenown Vejjetable and Edible Insects In-sects of tlie Prairie. Over at the department of agriculture, bidden away in an obscure corner, ia an odd sort o exhibit of queer foods eaten by out of the way people. There Is a loaf of bread made from the roasted leaves of a plant allied to the century plant. Another kind of bread is from a Sough of juniper berries. These are relished rel-ished by 6ome tribes of Indians, while others manufacture cakes out of different differ-ent kinds of bulbs. The prairie Indians relish a dish of wild turnips, which civilized people would not be likely to enjoy at all. In the great American desert the "screw beans," which grow on mesquite bashes, bash-es, are utilized for food. Soap berries furnish an agreeable diet for 6ome savages sav-ages in this country, while in California Califor-nia the copper colored aborigines do not disdain the seeds of salt grass. Also in California the Digger Indians collect pine nuts, which are the seeds of certain species of pine, sometimes called "pinons," by kindling fires against the trees, thus causing the nuts to fall out of the cones. At the same time a sweei gum exudes from the bark, serving the purpose of sugar. The seeds of gourds are consumed in the shape of mush by Indians in Arizona. In addition to all these things the exhibit ex-hibit referred to includes a jar of pulverized pul-verized crickets which are eaten in that form by the Indians of Oregon. They are roasted, as are likewise grasshoppers and even slugs. These delicacies are cooked in a pit, being arranged in alternate alter-nate layers with hot stones. After being be-ing thus prepared they are dried aud ground to powder. They are mixed with pounded acorns or berries, the flour made in this way being kneaded into cakes and dried in the sun. The Assiniboines use a kind of se;d to stop bleeding at the nose. Among othei curious things used for food are acorns, sunflower seeds, grape seeds, flowers of cattails, moss from the spruce fir tree and the blossoms of wild clover. The exhibit embraces a number of models representing grape seeds enormously enlarged. en-larged. It is actually possible to tell the species of a grape by the shape of the seed. There is a jar of red willow bark, which Indians mix with tobacco tor the sake of economy. This, however, is only one of a thousand plants that are utilized util-ized in a similar fashion. Washington Star. |