110 



Columbus arrived there. It was the only species of corn that was 

 at that time used by the natives."* 



De Solis speaks of maize as a common article of food among the 

 Mexicans, and of an intoxicating liquor made of it and used by 

 Montezuma, t 



" At the close of the harvest the Indians of North America 

 preserve the crops for winter. Some leave the maize in ears and 

 train it in long tresses, as we do onions. Others shell it and fill 

 with it great baskets made with open work, that the corn may not 

 heat. When obliged to be absent from home a considerable time, 

 or when they apprehend an inroad of the enemy, they bury it in 

 the ground. "$ 



If now we look particularly to the early notices of maize in the 

 United States, we shall find that the first settlers every where 

 met with it, and have described it with such accuracy and fulness 

 as to leave no doubt that it was cultivated as an article of food 

 from Florida to Maine. 



Champlain, a Captain in the French navy, was, so far as I 

 know, the first European who saw and described the cultivation 

 of maize in New England. In the year 1606, on a voyage of 

 discovery, he sailed along the coast of Maine and Massachusetts. 

 Having landed upon the banks of the Kennebec river, he writes 

 thus : — " Here we saw their Indian corn, which they plant, three 

 or four grains in a place. Then at a distance of three feet they 

 plant as much more. In each hill they put three or four colored 

 beans." At the Saco river, " the savages told me that all who 

 inhabited this region cultivated and sowed the land like those 

 whom we had seen." At Cape Cod, " we landed and passed 

 through a field of Indian corn, planted like those fields we had 

 seen before. The corn was now — July 21st — in blossom, and 

 five feet and a half high. There was also other less advanced, 

 having been planted later. There were also several fields left to 

 recruit in fallow. "§ 



Having passed Cape Cod they found " much land well tilled 

 in corn. AH the people in this place are industrious, and make 

 provision of corn for the winter. They preserve it by putting 

 it into sacks made of grass and bury it in trenches in the sand." 



Independent of the testimony to the culture of maize in New 

 England by this early adventurer, the above account is interest- 

 ing inasmuch as it furnishes evidence of considerable civilization, 

 in the fixed abodes, the cultivated fields, the variety of crops, || 



*■ Molina's History of Chili, 1 : 89. 



t Hist. Conquest of Mexico, 1724, Book III., Chap. 15. 



I Ciiai-lcvoix's History of New France, 1744, vol. G, p. 44. 

 ^ Voyages de Channpiain. Paris, 161.3, pp. 67, 118, 12.5. 



II (^hainphiin s])eaks of seeing pnnipkins, melons, tobacco, and roots whicli had 

 the taste of artichokes, pp. G7, 118, 124. 



