152 Ha rs/i berger. — Ma ise : 



Notwithstanding the indisputable fact that maize is of 

 American origin, and the statements of such men as Dodoens, 

 Camerarius, Matthioli, Gerard, Ray, Parmentier, Discourlitz, 

 Bonpland, De Candolle, Humboldt, Darwin, F. Unger, von 

 Heer, James, Targioni-Tazzetti, Hooker, Figuer, Nuttall, Mrs. 

 Summerville and Flint, the contrary that the cereal is of east- 

 ern origin has been asserted. Bock, 1532, Ruellius, 1536, 

 Fuchsius, 1542, Sismondi, Michaud, Gregory, Lonicer, Reg- 

 nier, Viterbo, Tabernamontanus, Bonafous, St. John, De- 

 Herbelat and Klippart have argued for an Asiatic origin. A 

 discussion of this question is interesting historically. 



The ancient authors on agriculture, Theophrastus, Varro, 

 Columella, Pliny, Palladius, Galen and Dioscorides, do not 

 mention maize. The principal argument for an eastern origin 

 is based upon a charter of the thirteenth century, the Chart 

 of Incisa, according to which the Crusaders, in 1204, gave' to 

 the town of Incisa a piece of the true cross, and a purse con- 

 taining a seed of a golden color. Comte de Riant 1 has shown 

 this charter to be a fictitious fabrication of a modern impostor. 



Such names as Turkish wheat, Sicilian corn, Spanish corn, 

 Guinea corn, Roman corn, have been used in the argument 

 for the eastern origin of maize, but they prove no more than 

 the word turkey (coq d'Inde) argues for the Turkish origin of 

 the American fowl. 



The total silence of the travellers who visited Asia and 

 Africa before the discovery of America, also militates against 

 an eastern origin. Notwithstanding this, China has been 

 frequently called the original home of maize ; this im- 

 pression became current because of an illustration in an 

 ancient Chinese work on natural history. Dr. Bretschneider, 2 

 an authority on Chinese cultivated plants, does not hesitate to 

 say that Indian corn is not indigenous to China, and Shigeno 

 Aneki has undertaken to prove how in Japan certain historical 

 episodes were "cooked" under the Tokugawa dynasty of 

 Shoguns. " A little reflection will show that such manipula- 

 tions of history are likely to be the rule rather than the 



1 Riant, La Charte d'Incisa, 1877. 



" Bretschneider, Study and Value Chinese Botan. Works, 7, 18. 



