ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICANCE OF CORN BELT MAIZE 127 



from crosses between White Southern Dents, mostly of Mexican origin, and 

 the long, slender Northern Flints which had dominated the eastern United 

 States for at least some hundreds of years preceding the discovery of 

 America. While these two complexes were of primary importance in the crea- 

 tion of Corn Belt corn, it should be pointed out that germ plasm of other 

 types of maize has undoubtedly filtered into Corn Belt mixtures. Compared 

 to Southern Dents and Northern Flints, these certainly are of minor im- 

 portance. There are, nevertheless, to be found among dent inbreds of the 

 Corn Belt certain strains which exhibit Caribbean influence and others 

 which seem to contain germ plasm of southwestern United States or western 

 Mexican varieties. 



Although the following discussion does not go into detail regarding the 

 influence of these secondary sources of germ plasm on Corn Belt corn, the 

 effects of such influences are important and we have already made small 

 beginnings at studying them. The Northern Flints are in some ways strik- 

 ingly similar to the common yellow flints of the Guatemalan highlands, strik- 

 ingly unlike most Mexican maize. They are one of several cultural traits 

 which apparently spread from the Mayan area to the eastern United States 

 without leaving any clear record of the route by which they came. In their 

 general appearance, as well as in technical botanical details, the Northern 

 Flints were very different from the Southern Dents. The hybrid vigor which 

 resulted from mixing these diverse types was soon noted by alert agricultur- 

 ists. While some of the blending of flints and dents may have been haphazard 

 and accidental, much of it was directed and purposeful. The benefits to be 

 gained were listed in public, and the exact effects of continued mixing and of 

 backcrossing were discussed in detail as early as 1825 (Lorain, 1825). This 

 intelligent, controlled hybridizing proceeded for at least a half century until 

 the new yellow dents were so ubiquitous and everyday that their very origin 

 was forgotten. 



For theoretical reasons this neglect of historical tradition was unfortunate. 

 Maize breeders have not understood that the heterosis they now capitalize 

 is largely the dispersed heterosis of the open-pollinated flint-dent mongrels. 

 Maize geneticists are for the most part unaware that the germ plasm they 

 use for fundamental generalizations is grossly atypical of germ plasms in 

 general. We shall return to a detailed discussion of these two points after 

 referring briefly to the evidence concerning the origin of Corn Belt maize. 



Though there is abundant evidence that our Corn Belt dents came from 

 mixtures of Northern Flints and Southern White Dents, the evidence con- 

 cerning these two regional types is very one-sided. The Northern Flints 

 (Brown and Anderson, 1947) were remarkably uniform from place to place 

 and from century to century. The archaeological record is rich going back to 

 early pre-Columbian times and there are numerous naive but accurate de- 

 scriptions of these varieties in colonial accounts. 



