VICE-SECRETARY ON THE WILD STATE OF MAIZE. 115 



berga, where they used to sow or set it to make bread of it." He 

 adds, " Wee have as yet no certain proof or experience concern- 

 ing the vertiies of this kinde of corne, although the barbarous 

 Indians, which know no better, are constrained to make a vertue 

 of necessitie and think it a good food." — {Gerarde''s Herball^ by 

 Johnson, p. 83, Edition 1636.) 



Hernandez, in 1651, produced conclusive evidence of the 

 American origin of this kind of corn ; for in his account of the 

 Natural History of Mexico he gives a figure of it, and states that 

 its Mexican name is Tlaolli ; and that of a beverage made from 

 it, AtoUi* 



Hernandez, however, gives no account of the wild state of the 

 plant, nor does any other author that I liave been able to meet 

 with ; and therefore a communication from Mr. M. Floy, of New 

 York, acquires considerable interest. In a letter, addressed to 

 the Secretary, he makes the following statement : — 



" Last year I received from the Rocky Mountains a few grains 

 of Native Indian Corn, which I consider to be the original corn. 

 Its appearance is remarkably different from the cultivated 

 varieties, each grain being covered with a husky glume. I 

 planted it last spring, where no other corn could come in con- 

 tact with it. I raised only two or three ears, which were of the 

 same nature as those placed on the top of the ear of the corn 

 received. I observed a grain or two which was but little covered 

 with husk, the produce of which is almost like our common corn, 

 showing that from its wild state two or three yeai's of cultivation 

 would bring it into its present form." 



This supposed wild form of the Maize is so interesting as to 

 deserve an exact account of it. Three ears were received, of 

 which the smallest was eight inches, and the largest a foot in 

 length. They resembled Indian corn when very young, while 

 the chaff or husks of the flowers still cover over the grains : but 

 the grains were plump and ripe, and there was no sign of imma- 

 turity. In one of them a small number of grains near the point 

 of the ear were peeping through the chaff or husks, or perhaps 

 it would be more correct to say, that near the point of one of the 

 ears the chaff had already begun to diminish in size and to shrink 

 back from the grains. 



The accompanying' figures will show more clearly the difference 

 between the wild and cultivated corn. Fig. 1 is the former, in 

 the upper part showing the appearance of the ear before it is cut 

 open, and the lower, the grains enveloped in large leafy chaffs. 



* M. Kunth {Eimmeratio plantaruiu, i. 19) states that Maize is wild in 

 Paraguay, upon the authority of M. Auguste de St. Hilaire ; but I do not find 

 mention made in the works of that author of his having found ]Maize in a 

 ■wild state. 



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