ESSAY ON INDIAN CORN. 151 



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 six- 

 teenth century, and wrote but shortly after Bock and Fuchsius. Af- 

 ter him came Camerarius,^ then Matthioli, one of the most learned 

 and justly celebrated men of his time. He affirms^ that Turkish 

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

 called Indian wheat, (hie d'lnde} and not Turkish wheat, because 

 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, ve- 

 rum ah aristarum similitudine aliqua cum crista sen pluma in apiee 

 Turcoruyn capitihus imposita. 



Grerarde, 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 of Asia Minor, which is the 

 Turk's dominions, but out of America and the Islands adjoining, as 

 out of Florida and A^irginia, or Norembega where they used to sow, 

 or to set it, and to make bread of it, where it groweth much higher 

 than in other countries." He also takes care to say that it was 



1. Stirpium Historiae Pemptades. Antwerp : 1583. 



2. Hortus medicus el philosophicus. Frankfort: 1588. 



3. I Discorsi nei sei libri di Dioscoride. 1645. Described also in the Commeiitarii in Lib. pri- 

 mum Dioscoridis. p. 319. 1598. 



4. Historia Plantanim. London: 1686. 



5 Herball or General Historic of Planles, p. 85, 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 amus- 

 ing to see how little the true qualities of maize were known at this time in Eng-land. 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 Bi.sket is. and hath m it no cla- 

 miness at all ; for which cause, it is hard of digestion and yieldeth to the body little or no nourish- 

 ment ; it slowly descendeth and hindeth as that doth which is made of Millil or Panick. AVe 

 have as yet, no certain proof or experience concerning ihe virtues of this kind of corn ; although 

 the barbarous Indians, which know no better, are constraiiieii to make a virtue of necessity and 

 'liiiik it a good food : whereas we may easily judge that il nourishelh hut little and is ol hard a.ud 

 evil digestion, a more conveuieiii food for swine than for men.' 



