SECRETARY'S REPORT. 53 



After this accumulation of evidence in favor of its eastern 

 origin, it is worthy of remark that some have even asserted that 

 it was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans. But such 

 conjectures as that the black millet brought from India to Italy 

 in the time of Pliny, was the maize, are probably ill-founded. 

 Even Mr. St. John, whose great familiarity with the domestic 

 affairs of ancient Greece entitles him to the highest respect, 

 says : " In the region beyond Bactria, a species of corn was 

 found which must unquestionably have been maize, since the 

 grains are said to have been as large as olive stones, and to maize 

 alone can we apply Herodotus's description of the wheat found 

 in Babylonia, the straw of which was encircled by leaves four 

 inches in diameter, and its return from two to three hundred fold. 

 Now in wheat I believe so prodigious an increase is all but 

 impossible ; whereas a still greater return might be obtained 

 from the Indian corn." And there have not been wanting those 

 who think that Homer distinctly mentions maize, as well as the 

 naturalist, Theophrastus, in his history of plants, and that allu- 

 sions are frequently made in the Bible to a grain that could 

 have been no other than maize or Indian corn. Such was the 

 opinion of William Cobbett. It arose, however, from utter 

 ignorance of the ancient mode of planting or sowing wheat, 

 which will be alluded to hereafter. 



It is now proper to enumerate, briefly, the authorities on the 

 other side of the question ; those who believe maize to be indi- 

 genous to America, and that the New World should have the 

 credit of having given it to the Old. And here, it may be, we 

 shall find naturalists not less celebrated than those already men- 

 tioned. Among the first, in point of time, is Dodonajus, who 

 lived in the middle of the sixteenth century, and wrote but 

 shortly after Bock and Fuchsius. After him came Camerarius, 

 then Matthioli, one of the most learned and justly celebrated 

 men of his time. He affirms that Turkish wheat {ble turc) is 

 not a proper name for maize ; that " it should be called Indian 

 wheat, (ble crinde,^ 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. 



