BREAD PLANTS 39 



light, cottony mass when heated. Sweet corn is 

 rich in sugar and protein. Its kernels shrink 

 and wrinkle in drying. Pod corn, called also 

 "coyote corn," is a Mexican race that has 

 each kernel, as well as the ear, enclosed in a 

 papery husk. Pop corn may have originated 

 from a primitive pod corn. In the mummy 

 cases of Peruvian tombs grains of another type 

 were first found by scientists. It is called soft 

 corn, because the horny part is wanting in the 

 grain. It is now grown in Mexico and parts of 

 South America. 



Darwin thought that all the "agricultural 

 species" of corn are descendants of the pod corn 

 of Mexico. The best authorities now hold that 

 the aboriginal ancestor of corn is probably extinct. 

 The corn-like plant, teosinte, that grows wild in 

 ^Mexico, is believed to be one parent of corn, but 

 the other is unknown. Wild corn has never been 

 found. 



Whatever the form of the original wild species, 

 there have sprung from it the six races named 

 above: pod, pop, sweet, flint, soft, and dent. 



Sweet corn was in cultivation by the Susque- 

 hanna Indians in 1779, when its qualities were 

 first discovered by white settlers. No history of 

 the species is known behind that date, though 



