The Free State is the agricultural heart of South Africa. The original Boer farms were measured out by choosing a spot for the farmhouse and then riding out to mark the four corners as far as the rider could travel in one day on one horse. A good steed managed to rein in about 3 000 morgen (2 500 hectares). Although many of the farms have now been subdivided through inheritances, some very large chunks still exist. Much of the Free State is down to mielies, making it the corn-basket, as well the bread-basket, of the sub-continent. The mielie is South Africa’s name for a husk of maize and it forms the staple diet of the majority of South Africans. The name mielie, or sometimes mealie, strangely comes from the Portguese milho not from an Afrikaans root.