422 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 452. 



completion of the design. Certain it is that the topographi- 

 cal survey of these parks ought to be delayed no longer, 

 for contour maps will be needed before even an intelligent 

 study of them can begin. 



New York is not the only city which has committed this 

 fundamental error, and the mistake will be repeated over 

 and over again until it is understood that a large part of 

 the usefulness of a public park depends upon the selection 

 of its site, and that a park with a well-chosen site, and 

 with boundaries intelligently defined, is half-designed. It 

 is an unpleasant fact that there are but few skilled park- 

 makers in the United States, but if one can be secured by 

 a municipality which is about to provide itself with public 

 pleasure-grounds, no counsel of such an artist can be of 

 greater use than that which he gives before a foot of land 

 is bought. 



Is Indian Corn Growing Wild in America ? 



MANY years ago researches were made to establish 

 the fact that Maize belonged exclusively to this 

 country, and was of American origin. It was believed in 

 r S37 that the plant in its wild state was extinct, and thus 

 one of the strongest arguments to prove it indigenous was 

 lost. No evidence could be found in Europe, Asia or Africa 

 to show that the plant existed prior to the voyages of 

 Columbus, in 1492, or Pizarro, in 149S. Both of these 

 navigators saw it growing, and we have now reason to 

 believe that the Indians and Incas made use of the grain 

 many years before these visitors arrived. We have corn 

 that has been preserved for several hundred years, and it 

 may have been grown over a thousand years ago. In a 

 dry state this grain appears to be indestructible, and I have 

 in my possession some Peruvian corn that is certainly sev- 

 eral hundred years old; it is dry and friable, is of a red 

 color, and yields a white meal. It was buried with a so- 

 called mummy prior to the year 1555, and how long before 

 history does not tell. Peruvian corn was in small ears, 

 from three to six inches long, and bore grains pointed on 

 the top, not in rows, but somewhat imbricated. It was 

 evidently far removed from the wild stock. 



Primitive Corn, or Wild Corn, which has been found in 

 several different regions of this continent naturally repro- 

 ducing itself, has a character of growth that fits it for long 

 preservation in a mild climate, although, if planted and 

 cultivated a few years, all the characteristics of wildness 

 gradually disappear. The cobs of Wild Maize are thin and 

 hard, covered with lines of mushroom-shaped elevations, 

 each having a wire-like pedicel growing from the top, 

 attached to a glume enclosing a small pointed grain, or a 

 flat grain smaller than any pop corn. These kernel-husks 

 overlap each other toward the point of the ear, like the 

 shingles on the roof of a house. The imbrications are 

 largest and longest at the butt of the ear, and gradually 

 become less pronounced as they advance in distinct rows 

 to the point. The individual glumes are from an inch to 

 two inches long, and are much longer than this where the 

 grains are not fertilized, particularly if the entire ear is of 

 this character, as is proved by a specimen in my collection. 

 Over these imbrications is the outside husk as we have it in 

 all cultivated Corns. Of course, the barn and the corn-crib 

 soon make winter protection by the glumes unnecessary. 



Originally there may have been but one variety of Corn, 

 and it was attached to a mild climate ; but, judging from 

 analogy and the effects of cultivation, we are of the opinion 

 that there were subvarieties, and in them the grains were 

 of a different color and the glumes striped. The Incas and 

 Indians had different varieties of Corn, and grew ears of 

 several colors, some uniform and others mixed, but their 

 cobs were thin and sometimes the ears quite short. Six 

 varieties of the Wild Corn found growing in infrequented 

 localities have been described, five of which I have seen, 

 and several of which have been grown. All have pedicels 

 attached to the glumes, and the glumes imbricated. 



The word corn, in many languages, simply means 



grain. Indian corn is Indian grain distinctively, as 

 the Indians had no other. They had beans, squashes, 

 pumpkins, gourds and melons, but wheat, rye, oats and 

 barley belonged to the Old World, and had to be imported. 

 The Indians grew Corn over a wide range of country and 

 wherever the climate was adapted to it. 



Cultivation has done wonders with this grain both in its 

 form and color, so that now we have, perhaps, a hundred 

 varieties. The plant varies from a foot and a half to fifteen 

 feet in height, and the ears from two inches to sixteen 

 inches in length. We find in modern Indian growths ears 

 that are of a uniform gamboge-yellow, white, black, blue 

 and red, besides mixed colors. We have also several 

 varieties of Pop Corn, Sugar Corn and Field Corn. Most 

 of the Corn grown by Indians is in small rounded grains, 

 except that of the Cliff-dwellers, who appear to have been, 

 in a measure, an agricultural people. Their cobs were thin 

 and their grain in rows, but the individual grains were 

 larger and square ended. Indented Corn seems also to 

 have been known among them. 



Every people must have a drink, and if the process of 

 distillation is unknown they resort to fermentation. Primi- 

 tive American races made a drink out of corn, analogous 

 to beer, by fermentation of the ear in its green state or 

 after it had dried. This was intoxicating to a certain ex- 

 tent, but, fortunately, much less so than the modern distil- 

 late from the same grain. The drinking-mugs of the 

 Cliff-dwellers bear testimony to their having had this habit. 

 Great improvements have been made by the white race 

 in growing this cereal, and one of the chief of these is in 

 the diameter of the cob, which has been made to hold as 

 high as twenty-four rows. From four to six ears have been 

 grown on one stalk, and ears produced of very remarkable 

 length. Sugar Corn was introduced in 1779, and now it 

 and Pop Corn have entered into the race, and larger varie- 

 ties are being produced. The commercial variety known 

 as "Turkey Corn" is not a Maize, and does not bear its 

 grain on an ear, but on the top, in the tassel, as the Broom 

 Corn does. Turkey Corn is about eight feet high and bears 

 a small, rounded grain, which is either white or pinkish; in 

 the east it is known by the name of Dura. The Turks and 

 Egyptians grow Indian Corn, it is true; but it was origi- 

 nally obtained from America. Turkey Corn and Maize have 

 often been confounded by botanical writers. " Ble de 

 Turquie" is a distinctive grain. 



Indian Corn in its wild state has been found in Ari- 

 zona, southern Texas, the valley of Mexico and Central 

 America. Rocky Mountain Corn I have known a long 

 period of time ; it has very small ears. Corn has been 

 found growing wild in the valley of Mexico, and one of 

 the professors in the University of Mexico has been experi- 

 menting with it, and has the engraving of a plant which 

 grew about five feet high. Wild Corn has also been 

 grown at the Landreths', near Bristol, to whom it was 

 sent from Arizona. The last I have seen was found by 

 Dr. Williams, of Houston, Texas, when on a hunting ex- 

 pedition in the southern part of that state. It is a white 

 flint of fair size, and fifteen stalks have only produced four 

 ears, which grew on two of the stalks. The plant is a very 

 vigorous grower, but it is not productive, and eight stalks 

 grown in Texas did not produce a single ear. 

 Philadelphia, Pa. Robert P. Harris. 



[Indian Corn with glumes to each kernel is not rare. 

 Usually, when this is planted, something like fifty per cent, 

 of the ears produced have kernels without husks, which 

 fact suggests that it is a sport or strain of ordinary Field 

 Corn. If Maize has been found naturally reproducing itself 

 where it could not have escaped from cultivation or have 

 been produced from dropped seed, this certainly is a most 

 interesting fact — a fact so important, indeed, that botanists 

 will feel inclined to scrutinize the evidence closely before 

 adopting the view that this Wild Maize is a survival of the 

 prehistoric form, and not a reversion of cultivated Corn 

 toward the primitive type. — Ed.] 



