ESSEX SOCIETY. 107 



other side of this question ; those who believe maize to be in- 

 digenous to America, and that the New World should have the 

 credit of having given it to the Old. And here, it may be, we 

 shall find naturalists not less celebrated than those already 

 mentioned. Among the first, in point of time, is Dodonaeus.* 

 who lived in the middle of the sixteenth century, and wrote 

 but shortly after Bock and Fuchsius. After him came Came- 

 rariuSjf then Matthioli, one of the most learned and justly 

 celebrated men of his time. He afiirms J that Turkish wheat, 

 {hie turc) is not a proper name for maize ; that "it should be 

 called Indian wheat, [hlc d^Inde) and not Turkish wheat, be- 

 cause it came from the West Indies, and not from Asia nor 

 from Turkey, as Fuchsius believes." So Ray <§. and others, say 

 that Fuchsius was mistaken, and that it came from the New 

 World. M. Dumeril thinks it was called Turkey wheat, in 

 consequence of its long stalks. So the authority of Heynius 

 is to the same effect. Turcici nomen non ex vulgo accepit, 

 quod ex Turcorum terris exportatum fuit, verum ah arisiarum 

 similitudine aliqua cum crista sen pluma in apice Turcorum 

 capitihus imposita. 



Gerarde, after describing several kinds of " Turkey wheat, "|| 

 which were evidently species of maize, goes on to say : — 

 " These kinds of grain were first brought into Spain, and then 

 into the other provinces of Europe, not (as some suppose) out 



* Stirpium Historae Pemptatles. Antwerp : 1583. 



\ Horlus medicus et philosophicus. Frankfort : 1588. 



X I Discorsi nei sei libri di Dioscoride. 1645. Described also iu the Conimentarii in 

 lib. priniuni Dioscoridis, p. 319. 1598. 



$ Historia Plaiitarum. London : 1686. 



II Herball or Generale Histoire do Plantes, p. 82, London : 1633. This curious old work 

 contains plates of the different species of maize then known, as well as the millet and the 

 sorghum, with which the maize was often confounded. The plates show a very marked 

 difference. It is amusing' to see how little the true qualities of maize were known at this 

 lime in England. " Turkey wheat," he says, " doth nourish far less than either wheat, rye, 

 barley, or oats. The bread which is made thereof, is meanly white without bran ; it is hard 

 and dry as bisket is, and hath in it no claminess at all ; for which cause, it is hard of diges- 

 tion, and yieldeth to the body little or no nourishment 5 it slowly descendeth and bindelh, as 

 that doth which is made of Millit or Panick." ' We have as yet, no certain proof or experi- 

 ence concerning the virtues of this kind of corn ; although the barbarous Indians, which 

 know no better, are constrained to make a virtue of necessity, and think it a good food : 

 whereas, we may easily judge that it nourisheth hut little, and is of hard and evil digestion, 

 a more convenient food for swine than for men ! 



