XIII 



Corn-Makers 



TT WAS the German botanist, Camerarius who first startled 

 JL the world with the announcement that plants, as well as 

 animals have a sex life. 



Though he worked in Europe, Camerarius conducted his 

 experiments with zea mays, the American corn. What he had 

 found true of the mulberry and the castor-oil plant, he found 

 equally true of the maize that is, that the pollen from the 

 stamen is necessary to fertilize the ovules at the base of the 

 plant's pistils. 



In a majority of plants the two sexes meet in a single flower 

 or flower cluster. In the corn the sexes are separated as far 

 as the tip of the tassel is from the silk-hung ears. By remov- 

 ing the silk from ears of growing corn, Camerarius proved his 

 belief that the pollen from the staminate tassel which is caught 

 and carried through the husks to the ear is necessary to fer- 

 tilize the ovules in the ears and to develop these into kernels 

 of grain. 



The discovery of sex in plants which was made in the clos- 

 ing years of the seventeenth century was told in letters from 

 European botanists to enthusiastic botanists in this country. 

 So the information came to the eyes and mind of Reverend 

 Cotton Mather of Boston. This divine was fanatically orth- 

 odox on all points of the Separatist doctrine, and notoriously 

 severe against witches and sorcery. He exercised rigorous su- 

 pervision over the private lives of his flock. But he did not 

 shrink from the knowledge that "male and female created He 

 them" applied to the grass of the field as accurately as he 



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