340 
ea 
1535, he found the town surrounded by extensive cornfields. In 
1605 Champlain mentions fields of corn at the mouth of the Ken- 
nebec river and along Cape Cod. In 1609 Hudson found “ 
great quantity of maize” among the Indians of the river of his 
name. The Pilgrims, in 1620, found “ fifty acres” of field in one 
place, and “new stubble” elsewhere in their early reconnoisance 
of their country. In 1634 John Oldham bought 500 bushels of 
the Narragansett Indians, who had promised him a thousand. In 
1747 Cobden says the Five Nations made planting of corn their 
business and supplied more northern tribes, and in 1794 Gen. 
Wayne wrote of the Delawares, of Ohio, “ nor have I ever before 
beheld such immense fields of corn.” _ 
In the early settlement of America every European colony 
seems to have been dependent upon corn bought or seized ahi 
the Indians, and every march of invasion was rendered possible 
by the corn found in the Indian granaries or taken from the 
growing plants. De Soto’s march from the east discloses corm in 
crops throughout his course, as did Coronado’s march from 
Mexico to Kansas, wherever climatic conditions permitted. 
Columbus found maize in the West Indies on his first voyas® 
in 1492. In 1498 he reports his brother passing through eighteen 
miles of cornfields on the Isthmus, and the same year he found 
maize in Venezuela. At Zobabra, 1503, Diego Bartholemew saw 
above six leagues of cultivated corn. Cornfields and corn acs 
also mentioned in Central America by Pascual de Andagoy4 ” 
1516. In 1518 deEncica mentions maize and roots as constitut- 
ing the food of the Amazons, and in 1520 the ships of Magellan 
were supplied with maize at Rio Janeiro. Cieza de Leon, sere 
travelled in Peru, 1532-50, continually speaks of fields of _— 
as do more modern travellers, and the remains of pete? 
conduits attest the antiquity and extent of its culture. i” a 
1558, describes maize in Brazil, as does Lery, 1594, and Nie 
in 1647. In Chili maize was the ordinary diet, as Alonzo Lag : 
Ovalle wrote in 1649. In Mexico the sixth and seventh sane: fon 
of our era represent the Toltec period, and the Olmecs are thought . 
to have raised maize before the time of the Toltecs. ie ‘ih 
The antiquarian evidence is the finding of charred corm ® hes 
cobs in Indian mounds in Ohio, Missouri and elsewhere, ee! - 
