18 THE CAMEL. 



there are some species peculiarly suited to the 

 uses of man as a migratory animal. The bread- 

 stuffs of the old world, and, in a less degree, 

 Indian corn,^ our only American cereal, the pulse, 



1 The cereal grains of Europe and Asia are by original 

 constitution, or by long domestication, so thoroughly cosmop- 

 olite in their organization and habits, that they require no 

 gradual acclimatization when transferred to new localities ; 

 and seed wheat grown in the tropics will thrive and ripen on 

 the borders of the polar circle. Indian corn, on the contrary, 

 either because it has been more recently reclaimed, or from 

 some inherent physiological peculiarity, much less readily 

 accommodates itself to new conditions. With every percep- 

 tible change of climate a new variety occurs, and it is only 

 by a slow and gradual process of successive removals that 

 maize originating in Virginia can be brought to maturity in 

 New Hampshire. Upon the American continent maize is 

 cultivated from the sea level to the height of 10,000 feet, and 

 from the equator to at least 46* N. L. in Europe, to the 

 height of 3,000 feet (in the Pyrenees) and as far north as 

 52°. The cultivation of wheat reaches the height of 4,500 

 feet in Europe, of 10,000 in Peru. It is grown in the vicin- 

 ity of Frondhjem, in Norway, in Lat. 64^*, while rye some- 

 times ripens three or four degrees nearer the pole. Witti- 

 ver, Physicalisclie Geogi^aphie, 510, infers from the German 

 and Italian names of this grain, Turkisches Korn, grano turco, 

 that it is of Asiatic origin, but this appellation evidently had 

 its source in the geographical ignorance which in the Middle 

 Ages so constantly confounded Turkey with India, India with 

 America ; and all historical evidence goes to show that maize 

 is exclusively an American plant. Equally erroneous is the 

 statement of Burmeister, Geschichte der Schopfung, 23, 

 that Indian corn was only known upon the western slope of 



