52 
made a sweet, juicy and nutritious food. The food value of the 
agave together with that of maize made possible the dense popu- 
lation and the stage of civilization which developed on the high 
plateaus of Mexico 
Next to corn the beans comprised the most important crop 
raised by Indian tribes of eastern United States. It seems quite 
certain that the kidney bean, Phaseolus vulgaris, is a plant of 
South American origin and that its culture spread through 
o and eastern United States into Canada. The lima bean, 
Feats lunatus, is a native of South America. Seeds of this 
species have been found buried in prehistoric Indian tombs of 
Peru. The appearance of these beans is quite like that of the 
lima beans grown in our markets today. Columbus saw fields 
of beans which the Indians of Cuba were cultivating. He called 
them Fabas, the name of the bean which he knew in Italy, but 
he states that they differed from the beans of Europe. 
There is much confusion in the literature regarding the plants 
which we known as the pumpkin, the gourd, and the squash. 
These names are es rather loosely and even botanists have 
considerable difficu in ne eee the species to which 
the sere belon: he field pumpkin is a familiar 
plant in a United States, Vielding the substance for the famous 
pumpkin pie of the New England Thanksgiving. There are, 
field pumpkins. It seems certain that the pumpkin and its 
ssa Nea the pumpkin-gourds, are American plants native 
to South or Central America. There is more uncertainty regard- 
ing the origin of the true squash. If it is not native, it was intro- 
duced by the early explorers and found favor with the Indians 
of eastern North America with whom it was a plant of consider- 
able importance 
Beans, pumpkins, tobacco, sunflowers and artichokes were 
sometimes grown along with the corn, but were often grown in 
gardens laid out in long narrow beds with paths between them. 
