50 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LII. No. 1333 



appears that the growing of maize is largely 

 confined to the less civilized tribes living in 

 the more mountainous and inaccessible parts 

 of the coimtry. Thus 



The Tingpan Yoo are an agricultural people, but 

 they cultivate only in the hills and not generally at 

 a lower altitude than from 4,000 feet atiove sea- 

 level. They grow paddy, cotton, maize and poppy.2 



Another primitive tribe, the Wa, grow 

 maize and buckwheat as their only crop 

 plants. So isolated is this tribe that Mr. 

 Scott, writing in 1846, makes the statement 

 that 



One British party has passed through the heart 

 of the wild Wa country and they are perhaps the 

 only strangers who have ever done so. 



This isolation is due to the natm-al in- 

 accessibility of the country which is six or 

 seven thousand feet above sea level and ex- 

 ceedingly broken in character and to the 

 dangers to which travelers are exposed from 

 the natives. The Wa are still such ardent 

 head hunters that few outsiders care to enter 

 their country. Yet head-hunting with the 

 Wa seems to be an agricultural rather than 

 war-like practise. It is furthermore subject 

 to certain restrictions as the following quota- 

 tion shows: 



Though heads are taken in an eclectic, dilettante 

 way whenever chance offers, tihere is a proper au- 

 thorized season for the accumulation of them. 

 Legitimate head-cutting opens in March and lasts 

 through April. The old skulls will ensure peace for 

 the village, but at least one new one is wanted, if 

 there is not to be risk of failure of the crops, the 

 opium, itihe maize and the rice.s 



In the Sagaing district, which is just south 

 of Mandalay, maize is grown with lima beans, 

 the maize plants serving as supports for the 

 beans. This in one of the regions where the 

 crop is grown for the husks rather than the 

 grain. 



When young the cobs are enveloped in large, 

 soft, leaf -like sheaths. These sheaths, when dried, 

 are known to Burmaus as pet and are used as 



, 2 X. c, vol. I., Pt. I., p. 602. 



3 Scott, J. G., ' ' The "Wild "Wa, ' ' The Imperial 

 Asiatic Quarterly Keview, 1896, p. 143. 



wrappers for Burmese cheroots. The production of 

 pet is the most important use of the plant. The 

 cobs or female inflorescences are rarely allowed 

 to mature, unless when wanted for seed, but are 

 boiled and eaten as a vegetable.* 



In Scott's Gazetteer the husks, as cheroot 

 wrappers, are repeatedly mentioned as the 

 most important use of maize. It also appears 

 that the native varieties are especially adapted 

 to this purpose, thus it is stated that in 

 Pakokku 



Aanerican maize was grown for a time experi- 

 mentally, but the husks proved too coarse for che- 

 root eovers.5 



We may therefore assume that the 

 "Whackin white cheroot" of Kipling's Supi 

 yaw lat was wrapped in the husks of waxy 

 maize. 



Dm-ing the past season waxy endosperm 

 has been discovered in still another part of 

 Asia by Dr. W. H. Weston. Four ears grown 

 at Los Banos in the Philippine Islands from 

 seed originally from the Island of Mindanao 

 were sent to the Department of Agriculture 

 by Dr. Weston. All these ears contain a 

 small percentage of waxy seeds. 



At present there is no way of deciding 

 whether this occurrence of waxy endosperm in 

 the Philippines is the result of a recent intro- 

 duction from Shanghai or whether it repre- 

 sents another of the early stations comparable 

 with Burma and Shanghai. 



Waxy endosperm has been used extensively 

 in genetic experiments and has been crossed 

 with all other known types of endosperm. 

 It continues to behave as a single Mendelian 

 unit inherited in a strictly alternative manner. 

 It is in fact the only character of maize 

 studied at all exhaustively, for which no 

 modifying factors have been found. 



The strictly alternative inheritance of waxy 

 endosperm would suggest that it had origi- 

 nated through a single mutation. Parallel 

 mutations are not uncommon but it is diffi- 

 cult to believe that the same mutation should 

 have occurred independently in two localities 



i McKerral, A., Agricultural Surveys No. 2, 

 Dept. of Agri., Burma, p. 10. 1911. 

 5 L. c, Pt. II., Vol. II., p. 723. 



