54 AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY. 



times with the interpreter of the EngHsh embassy in Pekin, W. F. 

 Mayers. Both base their view, that maize was known in China 

 before the discovery of America, chiefly on the Chinese work 

 "Pen-tsao-kang-mu," the well-known Materia Medica of the 

 Chinese, which contains an undeniable representation of our plant. 

 But Li Shi chen (Tung pi), the celebrated author of that work, 

 compiled it in the twenty-six years from 1552 to 1578.^ This 

 then does not at all contradict the view that maize did not come 

 to Eastern Asia till after America was discovered. This view has 

 been repeated and most convincingly established by the famous 

 Genevan botanical geographer, A de Candolle,^ so that to take up 

 the subject again would seem almost unnecessary. There are, 

 however, other proofs, to my mind more direct, of my statement 

 that maize was introduced into Eastern Asia by the Portuguese — 

 proofs which De Candolle did not use, though among other things, 

 he correctly stated that maize has no Sanscrit name, and is 

 mentioned neither by Marco Polo nor Mendez Pinto. 



Then too, as Von Siebold also mentions, it is a significant 

 fact in this connection, that Japan raises only two sorts of maize. 

 Now, it is highly probable that a larger number of sub-species 

 would have been developed in the case of such an old culture, 

 as of almost all other fruits of the field. Further, it must be 

 emphasized that now-a-days this corn plays only a very subordinate 

 role among the other nutritious plants of the country, its culti- 

 vation being restricted to the borders of fields and to solitary beds, 

 and never extended over wide stretches. Also its grain is used 

 only for a few weeks in summer, when the green ears are roasted 

 over burning coals and then eaten. But this is a street custom 

 in various parts of the East. Considering the conservatism of 

 Japanese agriculture and its adherence to fixed methods, we may 

 take for granted that there has been little change in the use of this 

 grain since its introduction, and that it never was an important 

 part of the country's agricultural products. But a weightier and 

 more convincing reason for thinking that the culture of maize 

 in Japan is not old, but was introduced by the Portuguese, is the 

 fact that Indian corn has no proper Japanese name. All other 

 plants, — those brought over from China no less than most of the 

 indigenous ones, — have such names. But all the designations for 

 maize already mentioned are borrowed names, which clearly 

 indicate a foreign origin for this grain. Thus the term " T6- 

 morokoshi " means Chinese sorghum ; T6-kibi," Chinese millet, 

 and " Nanban-kibi," millet of the southern barbarians. Moreover, 

 the Chinese in Formosa call maize " Fan-meh," that is, foreign 

 grain — an expression they certainly would not have employed \i 

 the thing itself had been known to them in their mother-country 



* Bretschneider : "Botanicum Sinicum," p. 55. 



2 A. de Candolle: a. '* Biblioth^que universelle de Geneve," aout, 1836. b. 

 "Geogr.bot. raisonnee,'' p. 942, c. "L'origine des plantes cultivees," pp. 31 1-3 19. 



