XII 



With Milk and Sugar Blest 



JUST what is this corn which nourishes men and cattle, 

 which has opened vast new territories, dictated political 

 policies, built cities and railroads, and packed canals and rivers 

 with traffic which, in short, has made American history? 



Pull one of the kernels from an ear of corn. The rounded 

 top of the grain is golden yellow and hard. Even the tough 

 beak of a greedy barnyard fowl cannot peck it apart. The sides 

 of the kernels which have pressed against others in the ear are 

 paler in color and not quite so hard. At the base, which fits 

 neatly into a tiny hollow in the cob, the hull ends, leaving a 

 small opening into the center of the grain. Through that chan- 

 nel the juices of the plant have flowed to nourish each separate 

 kernel in the ear as it grew. 



Now, with a sharp knife, cut the kernel vertically in two. 

 Even without a microscope you can see that the contents of 

 the horny hull are composed of two distinct parts. At the base, 

 where it is nourished directly, is a bit of substance darker than 

 the rest. This is the germ. 



Look well at that bit of oily vegetable matter. It is no bigger 

 than a well-fed dog's flea, yet it holds the entire history of 

 zea mays. All this book, and infinitely more, is in that speck 

 which can be lost under your little fingernail. You cannot read 

 that history; but no more can you change it. It is more fixed 

 than the pyramids, and infinitely more mysterious. The 

 memories folded away in that bit of corn germ embrace the 

 milpas of the Maya and the unwritten wanderings of the corn, 

 back and forth across the Andes and Cordilleras. It knows the 

 degrees of relationship between teosinte and tripsacum. It 



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