No. 



Farmer's Work. 



125 



visiters, whom, history tells us, called this 

 country, "the West Indies." 



Indian names for many preparations of In- 

 dian Corn have descended to us: 'samp' in 

 the North, and 'hommony' in the South, are 

 names lor a dish of corn coarsely broken and 

 boiled like rice. " Sagamente," is the whole 

 grain with the hull taken oft" and boiled in 

 like manner. " Sack-a-tash," among the 

 northern aborigines was the name of a dish 

 composed of unripe corn and beans boiled to- 

 gether. 



Is not the manner in which the Zea is 

 described by the early botanical writers evi- 

 dence that the Zea mays was then unknown, 

 and that it has since been admitted into its 

 class and order % The Stem is ranged under 

 the Culm, which originally meant a hollow 

 . stem-like straw. 



In describing the female flowers, the coni- 

 cal process upon which the seeds are set, is, 

 (for want of an appropriate term, called a 

 s^jj^e,) vvhereas a spike is an inflorescence, 

 in which the flowers are sessile, (sitting 

 down,) placed immediately on the mam stem, 

 without the foot-stalk, like the mullen. This 

 description answers well enough for the male, 

 but not at all for the female flowers of the 

 Indian corn, which are not placed on the 

 stem at all, but upon a conical process set 

 upon the same. 



The covering of this conical process, and 

 the seed had no terms among these early bo- 

 tanists by which it could be described. It 

 was ranged under the part of " Calyx," or 

 cup of the flower, but comes naturally under 

 no definition of that I have ever seen in a 

 botanical work. 



In fact, so little are the classes and orders 

 fitted for the reception of this plant, that one 

 botanical writer (Mrs. Lincoln,) after arrang- 

 ing It under the 19th class moncecia, and or- 

 der Tnandria, mentions it again under the 

 order Dignia ; (the grasses.) " This plant," 

 (she says, p. 126,) " botanically called Zea 

 Mays, although of the natural family of the 

 grasses, having a culm-like stalk, and other 

 distinguishing characteristics of grass like 

 plants, IS yet placed in the class moncecia." 



5. What is the general opinion of the 

 learned ] 



In the first volume of the Encyclopedia of 

 Geography, by Murray, p. 175, is the follow- 

 ing: 



"In the west of Europe, maize has the 

 same range of climate as the vine, but reaches 

 further north, on the east side. In its native 

 American soil, it forms the chief article of 

 food, from the River La Plate to the Lakes 

 of Canada, requiring a short but warm sea- 

 son of four months; it is well suited to the 

 climate of the new world up to the lat. of 

 45°. 



In 1748, Montesquieu wrote his Espris des 

 Lois. In speaking of the soil of America, he 

 says, "The cause of there being so many 

 savage nations in America, is the fertility of 

 the earth, which spontaneously produces 

 many fruits capable of furnishing them nour- 

 ishment. If the women cultivate a spot of 

 land round their cabins, the maize o-rows up 

 presently." '^ 



One of the varieties of corn used in the 

 United States still bears the name of the 

 " King Philip Corn," from Philip, king of the 

 Wampanoags, who in 1674 made war with 

 the settlers of Massachusetts. [See Adams' 

 History of New England, p. 118.] 



See also an essay of Col. Taylor, of Vir- 

 ginia, on Agriculture ; the March number of 

 the Cultivator, edited by J. Buel, of Albany, 

 New York ; an essay of S. VV. Pomeroy, of 

 Brighton, Massachusetts, and published De- 

 cember 19, 1819, in the Massachusetts Agri- 

 cultural Repository ; Smith's History of Vir- 

 ginia; and Govenor Drayton's View of the 

 Carolinas ; in all of which the Indian corn is 

 considered as a native of America. 

 To be continued. 



Fanner's Work. 



ON THE TJSE;oF LIME IN RAISING WHEAT. 



Lime is not only a necessary ingredient in 

 every soil, which is intended to produce a 

 vigorous and profitable vegetation, but it is 

 wanted to compose a part of the substance of 

 certain plants, and wheat is one of the num- 

 ber. No plant can grow in a soil which is 

 entirely destitute of the earthly ingredients 

 which must constitute its substance fand lime 

 is found by chemical analysis, always to exist 

 in wheat, both in the straw and in the kernel. 



It is well known that the lands in N. Eng- 

 land, which are at all suitable for any kind 

 of grain, or root crop, will produce good 

 crops of wheat, when first cleared from their 

 native growth of wood. But after having 

 been tilled for some years, such lands yield 

 wheat with difficulty, and it is often found 

 impossible to raise it by any of the modes 

 commonly adopted for wheat culture. In 

 process of time, the soil appears to lose its 

 faculty for producing wheat and our farmers 

 think themselves forced nearly or quite to 

 forego its culture. 



The same variations have been likewise 

 observed in Europe. Wheat countries, by 

 continued cultivation, have become almost 

 incapable of yielding wheat. The cause and 

 remedy of this partial barreness, this falling 

 off as regards particular plants, v/ere alike 

 involved in obscurity, till modern discoveries 

 in chemistry threw light on the subject. It 

 has been found that the texture of every 

 soil is defective, unless there is a mixture of 



