156 K8SAY Olf INDIAN COBN. 



The infinite variety of plants indigenous to Mexico, to Central and 

 to South America, where Ave suppose maize to have originated, is be- 

 yond description. No counti-y on the globe can excel them in the 

 boundless luxuriance of native, indigenous plants. Here even the 

 giant trees of the forest are loaded with flowers of every hue and va- 

 riety. The purple and the blae and the scarlet, the brilliant yellow 

 and white, twine and mingle with every variety of green. Here are 

 the fig, the sugar-cane, the indigo, the aloe and the pepper plants, 

 the passifloreae, the pine apple and the endless varieties of the cactus 

 with its splendid and variegated blossoms. Here is the night flower- 

 ing cereus, the alspice myrtle, the clove, the nutmeg, mango guava 

 and an infinite vanetj/ of palms, rising often to the height of two 

 hundred feet. Here too, are forests of logwood and mahogany, of 

 colossal grandeur, often surrounded with shrubbery and parasitic 

 plants, with a foliage so dense that the rays of the sun can never pen- 

 etrate. Here is the mimosa, majestic in its size, the beautiful acacia, 

 and grasses that rise to the height of forty and fifty feet, with tree 

 ferns and reeds without number, often seen a hundred feet high. 

 The golden and rose-colored bignonias add their grace and beauty to 

 the teeming masses of blooming life. The laurels become splendid 

 forests. Plantains grow to gigantic size, and beneath all spring lilies 

 and bulbous plants as if not an inch of soil could be spared. Here 

 also the endless variety of creeping plants rise through the twining 

 limbs with their myriad and brilliant flowers. Thousands of species 

 still remain undescribed, and there may be thick and tangled forests 

 which the foot of civilized mtin has never trodden. Nor is this rich 

 luxuriance for a season alone ; for the spring, or the summer, or the 

 autumn. It is everlasting. The unfading verdure hides the very 

 appearance of death. The trunks of the decayed, matted and heap- 

 together, form only rich beds for the living to spring forth in the new- 

 ness of life. The eye is sated with beauty. The air is filled with 

 perfumes, and one is lost in wonder and amazement at nature herself. 

 This is the native country of maize. A country unparalleled in the 

 magnificence of its flora, and unequalled in the depth and richness 

 of its soil ! 



The importance and value of Indian corn are too well known to 

 every practical agriculturalist, to need illustration. Upon this part 

 of our subject we shall dwell but briefly. On every part of the 

 globe where the hand of civilization has broken the turf, this beau- 



