MUSEUM NOTES 



357 



house in City Hall I'ark and a library of 

 two hundred books, on through the long 

 years of discouragement and financial diffi- 

 culties and the annoyance of moving from 

 place to place, through the connection with 

 Columbia University — both on Forty-ninth 

 Street and after the removal to Moruingside 

 Heights — to 1902, when it accepted the in- 

 vitation to make its permanent home in the 

 American Museum building, to the mutual 

 profit and satisfaction of both the Society 

 and the Museum. 



A TIMELY bulletin on the subject of "Corn 

 in Montana," in Avhich the history, charac- 

 teristics, and adajitation of this cereal are 

 discussed, has been prepared by Professor 

 Alfred Atkinson, of the Experiment Station 

 of the Montana Agricultural College. 

 Through it we learn that corn, which is native 

 to this continent and therefore more dis- 

 tinctly American than any other of our farm 

 crops, is today the leading crop of the- na- 

 tion. Corn not only produces a crop of 

 highly nutritive grain but also fodder for 

 the stock, and at the same time leaves the 

 soil in excellent condition for planting small 

 grain without further cultivation, thus pro- 

 viding that rotation of crops so necessary in 

 economical farming. 



For some years the notion has prevailed 

 that corn could successfully be raised only 

 within the limits of a certain area along the 

 valleys of the Ohio, central Mississippi, and 

 lower Missouri rivers known as the "corn 

 belt." A study of corn-growing by the In- 

 dians, however, proves that maize has been 

 cultivated by them for many centuries in 

 nearly all sections of the United States and 

 even as far north as Montreal, Canada — 

 where Jacques Cartier observed large fields 

 of it growing in 1534. There is now a 

 gradual northwestern corn movement. Few 

 crops show adaptability to so wide a range 

 of conditions as corn, some varieties matur- 

 ing in eighty days and others requiring two 

 hundred, while corn may be raised success- 

 fully by dry farming as well as by irrigation. 

 The limits of possible corn culture are there- 

 fore by no means yet fixed. 



The Indians were not only the first corn 

 raisers, but also they developed a really 

 remarkable corn culture. According to the 

 Bev. Gilbert L. Wilson, Avho began work 

 among the Hidatsa Indians in North Dakota 

 in 1907 as an anthropological collector for 

 the American Museum, the Sioux brought 



the culture from tlicir first home in North 

 and South Carolina, and spread it by means 

 of the various groups into which the original 

 tribe finally broke up. Some of these groups, 

 as the Mandans, Arikara, and Hidatsa, be- 

 came great corn growers and gradually car- 

 ried the culture farther west and north in 

 Dakota and Montana. In the Southwest, 

 archaeological discoveries would indicate that 

 corn raising has been carried on for thou- 

 sands of years, and it is still the main crop 

 of the Pueblo Indians of that region — as 

 well as the occasion for many of the pic- 

 turesque ceremonies prevalent among them. 

 Through Mr. Wilson's studies among the 

 Mandan and Hidatsa Indians, the first in- 

 centive was given to the work of experiment 

 in corns adapted to short seasons. He found 

 that these Indians had several varieties of 

 corn, some of which they were able to grow 

 successfully much farther north than the 

 white farmer had done. The Montana Agri- 

 cultural College became interested and began 

 a series of experiments which have been fol- 

 lowed by such favorable results in corn grow- 

 ing as to create a wide interest. The 

 American Museum has received many in- 

 quiries from people in the New England 

 states, where the corn raised by the Indians 

 formed the basis of the varieties developed 

 by the colonists. Some of the results of the 

 important studies made by Mr. Wilson 

 among the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians by 

 permission of the American Museum of 

 Natural History, will appear in a report 

 published by the Montana Agricultural Col- 

 lege under the title: "Agriculture of the 

 Hidatsa Indians, an Indian Interpretation." 



Of the many visitors who stand daily be- 

 fore the food display in the cases in Me- 

 morial Hall of the Museum, few realize that 

 they are looking upon a purely artificial 

 exhibit. Among the materials used in these 

 reproductions of beefsteak, lamb chops, po- 

 tatoes, beans, ice cream, etc., are paraffin, 

 plaster, and a kind of Japanese seaweed 

 known as agar-agar. Some of the articles 

 are cast in molds, others, such as the very 

 realistic cake "napoleon," must be made en- 

 tirely by hand. After the mold is made the 

 specimen is cast in wax; then the minute 

 defects of the cast are "tooled" into shape, 

 and finally the perfect casts painted with 

 oil colors, the real article being before the 

 artist as a model. Sliced tomatoes and hard- 

 boiled eggs present great difficulties in re- 



