AMERICA'S CHIEF CROP 319 



a grass with the characteristic habit of bearing its 

 grain at the top of the stalk, just as other grasses 

 — including wheat and rye and barley, oats, rice, 

 sugar cane, and Kaffir corn — habitually do to 

 this day. 



The very natural presumption is that as the 

 corn was developed under cultivation, and 

 evolved a large ear which attained inordinate 

 size and weight, it became expedient to grow this 

 ear on the part of the stalk that was strong 

 enough to support it. 



Obviously an ear of corn of the modern vari- 

 ety could not be supported on the slender tip 

 of the stalk where the tassels grow. 



We saw in the case of the potato plant that 

 was grafted on the stem of the tomato, that 

 the tuber-bearing buds might put out from the 

 axils of the leaves under these exceptional 

 circumstances. 



Just what the circumstances may have been 

 that led to the bearing of its fruit buds exclu- 

 sively in the leaf axils in the case of the corn, 

 we of course cannot definitely know. But pre- 

 sumably the anomaly first appeared as a "sport/' 

 due without doubt to some altered conditions of 

 nutrition, from being placed under unusual 

 environment, and some one had the intelligence 

 to select this sport and breed from it, with the 



