MAIZE— KEMPTON 3gg 



burials in Utah, roughly a thousand years old, have jaelded perfectly 

 preserved ears (pis. 5 and 6). From the mounds of Ohio and the caves 

 of the Ozarks have come charred specimens of grain and cobs that 

 show corn in no wise different from the kinds that must have been 

 grown by the Indians of the same region within historic times. 

 The ears of corn from the Peruvian graves interred about the begin- 

 ning of our Christian era cannot be distinguished from the ears pro- 

 duced in the same region today. Similarly, the ears of corn buried 

 by the ancient Basket Makers are duplicated today by the ears 

 harvested each fall by our Southwestern Indians. 



In addition to the actual ears preserved by interment under the 

 exceptionally favorable conditions in the southwestern United States 

 and western South America, there is the record left by the ancient 

 potters who chose the ear of corn for ceramic decoration. Excellent 

 replicas of ears are found on the pottery of the Aztecs and the Incas 

 (pi. 7). Indeed, so excellent was the replica of one ear that for a 

 number of years it passed among us as a truly fossilized ear of corn. 

 These pottery replicas and exhumed ears all attest that corn as we 

 know it today was a finished product at least 2,000 years ago, so far 

 as its distinctive botanical characteristics are concerned. 



Although these prehistoric ears are smaU according to our standards 

 and give the impression that the corn of the American Indians was 

 diminutive, as a matter of fact the longest ears known were produced 

 by Indians. Indeed the longest ear, one measuring 18 inches from 

 the basal to the apical seeds, was produced by a Navajo Indian (pi. 8). 

 Ears 16 inches in length are not infrequent among the corn of the 

 Indians of Guatemala and Mexico. Eighteen inches, however, is 

 about the limit in length, as the pollen tubes which must reach the 

 ovary for fertilization cannot travel much farther than the 2 feet 

 necessary to reach the lowest seed on an ear of this length. 



The corn of the primitives is not primitive corn, and although none 

 of these ears of exceptional size has been preserved in ancient burials 

 there is little reason for doubting that such ears were produced long 

 before the Discovery. Certainly they are grown now by a people 

 little influenced by European culture. Indeed, the cornfields of the 

 Tarahumare Indians of Mexico — cave dwellers and bow-and-arrow 

 people — would be a credit to many of our farmers. 



The charred cobs retrieved from Indian mounds and kitchen mid- 

 dens are indeed small, and it is easily understood why they suggest a 

 primitive form of maize. From their size it is unreasonable to believe 

 they bore kernels as large as those of our commercial varieties, and 

 kernels commensurate with the size of the charred cobs would be no 

 larger than grains of wheat. However, when cobs of our commercial 

 varieties are burned they shrink in size until they are indistinguishable 

 from the excavated ancient remains except that the prehistoric cobs 



