AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 



53 



ander von Humboldt, it returns in some places harvests of three- 

 hundred fold. Moreover, the greatest number of sub-varieties are 

 found in America (over sixty) ; a point of no little significance 

 in answering the question as to its origin. Many of these, too, 

 lose their character when transplanted to other countries. In the 

 fertile Central States of the Union — Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, 

 Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri, its strong roots find abundant 

 nourishment in their deep alluvial soil and copious summer rains. 

 Maize-culture has therefore acquired an extent and significance 

 unequalled anywhere else in the world. 



As the various Teutonic nations bestow the word corn upon 

 their principal grain, — the German on rye, the Swede on barley, 

 the Englishman on wheat, — so the North American calls maize 

 **corn," or " Indian corn," in proper recognition of its value. 



Its cultivation, as already remarked, spread rapidly over the 

 Old World, and first to the three great peninsulas of Southern 

 Europe, from west to east successively, but gained no real foot- 

 hold except in the countries adjoining on the north, particularly 

 in the valley of the Po and the lands of the Lower Danube. In 

 the ioxvci^x, polenta, prepared from Indian meal, became a national 

 dish ; in the latter, among the Roumanians, mamaliga, a cake 

 made from the meal of Kukuruz (maize). 



From the lands of the Lower Danube, maize-culture spread to 

 the fertile Ukraine, and has since then been a competitor there 

 with wheat. The Portuguese spread it, as well as tobacco, with 

 their naval supremacy, along the coasts of Africa ^ and Southern 

 and Eastern Asia. Its introduction followed their first landing, in 

 China in 15 17, on the Philippine Islands 1520, in Japan 1542, 

 though perhaps not immediately. 



Different authors have disputed whether this was really the course 

 of the advance of maize in Eastern Asia. Von Siebold believed 

 he had discovered maize-cobs on an old Japanese coat-of-arms, 

 and had found other proofs of a very ancient cultivation of Zea 

 maize in China and Japan. ^ The French agronoin Bonafous, also, 

 to whom we owe the most complete work on maize,^ doubts whether 

 Eastern Asia became acquainted with maize until after the dis- 

 covery of America. The same was the case again in more recent 



^ In Dapper : " Beschreibung von Africa," published by Jacob von Meurs, 1670, 

 we find, p. 457 : " Erstlich hat man den Reis, als auch den Tiirkischen 

 Weitzen, den die Indier Mays nennen, und die Portugallier am allerersten 

 aus Westindien, da er iiberfliissig wachset, auf der Ins el des heiligen 

 Thomas, und von da auf den Goldstrand gebracht, und den Schvvartzen 

 m itgeteilet. Dan vor der Portugallier Zeit war ihnen dieses Gewachse unbekant : 

 aber itzund wachset es bey ihnen iiberall in grosser menge. Auch backen sie 

 Broht darvon, darunter sie zuweilen Hiirse, zuweilen keine menge." 



^ " Ex antiquis temporibus in insulis Japanicis cultum frumentum." See 

 " Synopsis Plantarum CEconomicarum Universi Regni Japanici," in " Verhand- 

 lingen van het Batavisch Genootschap," XII. Bat, 1830. 



2 " Histoire nat., agric. et dconomique du Mais." Paris, 1836. 



