58 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



d(iCoiivre le lien on il croit sans culture, si les revolutions que 

 la terre a subies ne rendent cette decouverte impossible." The 

 original homo of the maize will remain in doubt until they 

 discover where it grows wild, if the changes of our earth do 

 not render such a discovery impossible. 



But it may now be asked, how are we to explain the numer- 

 ous allusions to a grain, which if not Indian corn, must have 

 nearly resembled it ? We have already remarked that many of 

 the assertions of the early botanists confounded maize with 

 sorghum. Other allusions, and those by the sacred writers, 

 refer to wheat, which was indigenous to Asia, and almost uni- 

 versally cultivated. Mr. St. John admits that there was, and 

 still is, in that part of the world, " a very large grained wheat 

 called camel's tooth," which would naturally have given rise 

 to the expression, " ears of corn," so often used. The miscon- 

 ceptions of Mr. Cobbett and others, in regard to these references, 

 arise from ignorance of the ancient mode of sowing wheat, or 

 corn, as it was universally called by the old writers. Large 

 fields of it were sown, between which a narrow road or path 

 was left for the public. Tliis road was just wide enough for the 

 carriage to pass without injury to the grain, ther^ being no 

 fences for protection, so that it might literally be called " going 

 through the cornfields." It w^as sometimes gathered with the 

 sickle, sometimes by passing through it and plucking off" the 

 heads or ears, the reaper having an apron or pouch to drop 

 them into. 



Neither wheat nor rice were known to the first inliabitants 

 of America, and we may with as much truth say, that Indian 

 corn and the potato were neither cultivated in Asia nor the 

 South Sea Islands. 



It is well known that maize was introduced into Japan by 

 the Chinese. But there are no grounds for believing that the 

 Chinese themselves possessed it until the sixteenth century. 

 We persist, then, with Humboldt, in believing that maize was 

 not transported from the centre of Asia to the table lands of 

 Mexico. And, moreover, if we suppose that it was thus 

 transported from Asia, how are we to account for the infinite 

 varieties found in America, which, most certainly, were not 

 found in Asia ? Is it not more natural to suppose it to have 

 originated where every variety of it was found, than where only 



