The North American Indians have several wild roots which they dig up for sustenance when other food is exhausted.  Among these are—­1st, the mendo, or wild sweet potato; 2nd, the tip-sin-ah, or wild prairie turnip; 3rd, the omen-e-chah, or wild bean.  The first is found throughout the valleys of the Mississippi and St. Peter’s, about the basis of bluffs, in rather moist but soft and rich ground.  The plant resembles the sweet potato, and the root is similar in taste and growth.  It does not grow so large or long as the cultivated sweet potato, but I should have thought it the same, were it not that the wild potato is not affected by the frost.  A woman will dig from a peck to half a bushel a day.

The Indians eat them, simply boiled in water, but prefer them cooked with fat meat.

The wild potato, of the north-west of America, is a general article of food; it is called by them wabessepin; it resembles the common potato, is mealy when boiled, and grows only in wet clay ground, about one and a half feet deep.  The crane potato, called sitchauc-wabessepin, is of the same kind, but inferior in quality.  The Indians use these for food as well as the memomine, and another long and slender root called watappinee.  Probably it is the first of these that is referred to by Nicollet, as the prairie potato.  “All the high prairies (he says) abound with the silver-leafed Psoralia, which is the prairie turnip of the Americans, the pomme des prairies of the Canadians, and furnishes an invaluable food to the Indians.”  There are several species of Psoralia, viz., esculenta, argophylla, cuspidata, and lanceolata.

The prairie turnip grows on the high dry prairies, one or two together, in size from that of a small hen’s egg to that of a goose egg, and of the same form.  They have a thick black or brown bark, but are nearly pure white inside, with very little moisture.  They are met with four to eight inches below the surface, and are dug by the women with a long pointed stick, forced into the ground and used as a lever.  They are eaten boiled and mashed like a turnip, or are split open and dried for future use.  In this state they resemble pieces of chalk.  It is said that when thus dried they may be ground into flour, and that they make a very palatable and nutritious bread.  M. Lamare Picot, a French naturalist, has lately incurred a very considerable expense to obtain the seed, which he has carried to France, believing that it is capable of cultivation, and may form a substitute both for potato and wheat.

The wild bean is found in all parts of the valleys where the land is moist and rich.  It is of the size of a large white bean, with a rich and very pleasant flavor.  When used in a stew, I have thought it superior to any garden vegetable I had ever tasted.  The Indians are very fond of them, and pigeons get fat on them in spring.  The plant is a slender vine, from two to four feet in height, with small pods two to three inches long, containing three to five small beans.  The pod dries and opens, the beans fall to the ground, and in spring take root and grow again.  The beans on the ground are gathered by the Indians, who sometimes find a peck at once, gathered by mice for their winter store.