Ohio Cornfields

Among other things, he told us of the enormous fields of corn which had been planted, described to us the cabins our people had built, which were little more than low huts covered in with walnut bark, and declared that the houses and the corn seemed to grow at the same time, although the corn speedily overshadowed the small dwellings, for it grew so tall that one had to stand on tiptoes to break off an ear, while in Massachusetts it was often necessary for a farmer to stoop.

"One could as easily be lost in a cornfield on a cloudy day as in a cedar swamp," Parson Cutler said, and then went on to tell how much like a forest were these fields, where the green grain grew above one's head with leaves so huge as to shut out all rays of light from one furrow to another.

He rather dampened the ardor of some of the women when he said that the surveyors were forced to do their work under the protection of a guard of armed men, for fear of prowling Indians, and the children looked at each other in alarm as he told of one of the settlers who had been bitten, when asleep, by a copperhead snake.