Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

368 CAMPING AND WOODCRAFTthat is charged with prussic acid and is one of themost virulent vegetable poisons known to science.The Indians somehow discovered that this sap isvolatile and can be driven off by heat.The root iscleaned, sliced, dried on hot metal plates or stones,grated, powdered, the starch separated from themeal, and the result is the tapioca of commerce, orfarina, or Brazilian arrowroot, as may be, which weourselves eat, and feed to our children and invalids,not knowing, perchance, that if it had not been forthe art of a red savage, the stuff taken into ourstomachs would have caused sudden death.Another example, not of a poisonous but of anextremely acrid root that the Indians used forbread, and which really is of delicious flavor whenrightly prepared, in the common Indian turnip.Every country schoolboy thinks he knows all aboutthis innocent looking bulb. He remembers whensome older boy grudgingly allowed him the tiniestnibble of this sacred vegetable, and how he, therecipent of the favor, started to say **Huh! 'tain'tbad"—and then concluded his remark with what wegood, grown-up people utter when we jab the blackinkpen into the red-ink bottle!How^ever, not all of our wild food-plants areacrid or poisonous in a raw state, nor is it dangerousfor any one with a rudimentary knowledge ofbotany to experiment with them. Many are easilyidentified by those who know nothing at allof botany.I cannot say that all of them are palatable;but most of them are, when properly prepared forthe table. Their taste in a raw state, generallyspeaking, is no more a criterion than is that of rawbeans or asparagus.It goes without saying that this chapter and theone that follows are not written for average campers—townfolkmostly, who know almost nothingabout our wnld flora. They are for the more daringsort who go far from the beaten trail, fend forthemselves, and owe it to themselves to study mattersof this kind before venturing into inhospitable