MAIZE— OUR HERITAGE FROM THE INDIAN 



By J. H. Kempton 



Botanist, Division of Cereal Crops and Diseases, Bureau of Plant Industry, 

 U. S. Department of Agriculture 



[With 30 plates] 

 INTRODUCTION 



All of our cultivated crops were domesticated m prehistoric times, 

 some of them in the Old, others lq the New World. When the 

 Europeans discovered the New World, they found a highly developed 

 agriculture extending over most of the two Americas and the outlying 

 islands. This agriculture was based on plants unknown in the Old 

 World, and the cultural system followed made no use of beasts of 

 draught and burden. Aboriginal American agriculture was wholly 

 manual, and the crops raised were consumed directly by the producers. 

 The only domesticated animals of the prediscovery Americans were 

 the dog, the turkey, and the Uama. 



The key crop of the New World agriculture and the chief basis 

 of Indian economy was the noble grass we know as corn, as Indian 

 corn, or as our derivative of its Arawak name — maize. Although the 

 European races have largely displaced the Indian population of the 

 Americas, corn has retained its place as the principal crop of the New 

 World. It is grown in every State of the United States and is by far 

 the most valuable single crop produced in the Western Hemisphere. 

 It is the only domesticated plant that can be grown over the entire 

 range of climate, soils, and day lengths found in the territory extend- 

 ing from the Canadian border through the Central American tropics 

 to southern Chile, and from sea level to an altitude of 12,000 feet. 



No other cereal is as useful to man in so many ways. Not only 

 are the seeds borne in handy packages of from 500 to 1,000, but they 

 are edible and nutritious long before maturity. The ears of 

 corn lend themselves well to storage, and the seeds, being naked, 

 require no threshing or winnowing. The crop produces more food 

 value per unit of area than any other grain, though of course less per 

 man-hour than the Old World cereals such as wheat, which require 

 no care aft'er planting. The American agricultural system, based 

 on hand labor and involving either irrigation or the clearing of forests 



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