106 



tions and colors of their pendulous flower-tassels in spring, at a 

 season when most other trees give few signs of life. Tender and 

 delicate as they seem, they are all singularly hardy, and swift 

 and sure growers, even in the most exposed situations. The 

 vegetable world does not offer a group of more graceful trees. 



The plane trees, oriental and occidental, or the European 

 plane and our buttonwood tree, form a pillar of vast size and 

 strength, free from limbs near the ground, and admirably adapted 

 to avenues and road sides. In moist ground no other tree will 

 make so conspicuous a figure. Its immense columnar trunk and 

 large leaves took the fancy of the ancient Greeks, who preferred 

 it above all other trees ; — and the Romans, in this as in other 

 matters of taste, followed the Greeks. 



INDIAN CORN A NATIVE OF AMEIIICA. 



BY A MEMBER OP THE NORFOLK AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The presumption that Indian corn is a native of America is so 

 strong as to amount nearly to proof. No exception was taken to 

 the statements of the earlier writers to this effect, till long after 

 the discovery of this country. When maize had received a joyful 

 welcome, as an important addition to the means of human subsist- 

 ence, and had been rapidly and widely diffused in European and 

 Asiatic climates most favorable to its growth, local pride and na- 

 tional prejudices sought to establish its claims to an Eastern 

 origin. Why should it have been so soon adopted and so exten- 

 sively cultivated by people, who, to say the least, had not been 

 generally acquainted with it, and whose literature contains no de- 

 scriptions of it ? If it was a native of the Eastern continent, why 

 was not its value, as an article of food, sooner discovered ? It is 

 scarcely possible that if it had ever grown wild in any part of 

 Europe or Asia, its general culture should have been delayed till 

 the 16th century. Whereas its value, as food for man and cattle, 

 the facility with which it is raised and its abundant yield, suffi- 

 ciently explain why it should have found a ready reception among 

 nations hitherto strangers to its use. 



We have just pride in maintaining that it is indigenous in this 

 country. It is associated with our whole history. The first Eng- 

 lish settlers in North America found it here. Their descendants 

 have, to a large extent, lived upon it. Our bones are formed of 

 its elements. Our cattle and hogs know it as their peculiarly 



