I883.J 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



247 



Natural History and Science. 



COMMUNICATIONS. 



RELATIONS OF PLANTS TO NATIONAL 

 PROSPERITY. 



.'VB.STR.VCT OF LECTURE BV PROFESSOR ROTH- 

 ROCK, FAIRMOFNT I'.'VRK. 



The lecturer began by a statement of the com- 

 plications which arose in \'irginia over the propor- 

 tion of land to be devoted to corn and tobacco. 

 This commenced before there was a Pilgrim on 

 Massachusetts soil. Greed for gain led to making 

 the corn crop subservient to the tobacco. The 

 result was a period of scarci.ty, and, when the \'ir- 

 ginia settlers made a demand upon the Chicka- 

 hominy Indians for corn, they were refused so 

 contemptuously that a fight ensued, in which a 

 number of Indians were killed and others cap- 

 tured. The whites gained the victory, but 

 awakened Indian hate which cuhninated in a 

 bloody retribution years afterwards. 



On the other hand, within a few years after the 

 landing of the Pilgrims, they had corn to spare, 

 and the neighboring tribes "came to depend upon 

 the men of Plymouth for their supply." Thus the 

 want of corn in X'irginia was a cause of war, 

 while in .Massachusetts the superabundance was a 

 bond of peace. In Virginia it became necessary 

 to limit the production of tobacco by law. In 

 1623 tobacco was a legal tender in \'irginia. 

 When, in 1692, William and Mary College received 

 its royal charter, it was enacted that the College 

 should receive one penny a pound on all the 

 tobacco exported from V^irginia and Maryland, 

 towards its support. When the Church of Eng- 

 land was recognized as the Stale denomination 

 in Maryland, a portion of its revenue came from 

 the same source. This was in 1698. Corn was 

 cultivated in Peru prior even to the Inca rule, and 

 also in Mexico and New Mexico at the time of the 

 invasions of Cortez and Coronado. It proved 

 a source of revenue to the Aztec throne, and 

 entered into the religion of the country, where to 

 ensure a good crop human sacrifices were offered. 

 The public granaries of the country were drawn 

 upon by Cortez, so that the very food of the in- 

 habitants was made to assist in their subjugation. 



The last census gave the annual yield of corn 



and rye comhini'd in this country at 1.774,783,271 

 bushels. The data derived from the same 

 source led the lecturer to estimate that one of the 

 products of these grains^whiskey — gave us about 

 107,000 insane, criminals and paupers. It would 

 be interesting to know how much of those grains 

 was required to blight so much manhood, and to 

 determine whether, if used in some other way, the 

 same quantity would not have yielded a better 

 return to the country. The above estimate only 

 included those under restraint, and not those of 

 the unnumbered host who were still at liberty to 

 beat their wives and starve their children. The 

 lecturer thought a tariff on Canadian lumber 

 a mistake, as, without a proportionate benefit to us, 

 it placed a premium on the destruction of our own 

 supply. 



Rice among the cereals flourished in grounds 

 where none of the others would grow. Hence it 

 utilized large areas in India, China and Japan, and 

 in our own country, which would otherwise have 

 been unproductive. Though containing less nitrogen 

 than wheat, it has, nevertheless, been the almost 

 exclusive food of some of the hardest worked and 

 most enduring races on earth. It was introduced 

 into our country in 1694 by a vessel from Mada- 

 gascar, which put into Charleston in distress. 

 One of the most valuable characteristics of this 

 grain is its capacity for adapting itself to varying 

 conditions of soil and climate. 



Food plants from their abundance may lead to 

 national and individual indolence, as in the 

 Tropics. In such cases, the stimulus growing out 

 of the demands which temperate regions make 

 upon equatorial lands for their productions, is to 

 the inhabitants of the latter, of inestimable import- 

 ance. Accumulation of wealth by individuals, 

 as well also as the science of political economy, 

 are characteristic of temperate regions, and mainly 

 of the North Temperate. These distinguishing 

 features both grow, directly or indirectly, out of 

 the need of preparing for times of non-production 

 in times of production. Such an occasion can 

 hardly arise under the Equator. Hence, while the 

 tropics furnish the raw product for their own 

 commerce, the capital, machinery and brains, 

 which transport the product, come from the tem- 

 perate part of the globe. 



