I. 



1 6 MAIZE 



CHAP. Darwin (2) considered that maize "is undoubtedly of 



American origin ". 



Humboldt (1) observes that maize was found by the Euro- 

 pean discoverers of the New World from the south of Chile 

 north to Pennsylvania. Prescott (1) adds that he might have 

 given its known range as to the St. Lawrence as "our Puritan 

 fathers found it in abundance on the New England coast 

 wherever they landed " ; he cites as his authorities Morton, 

 New England 's Memorial, page 68 (Boston, 1 826;, and Gookin, 

 Massachusetts Historical Collections, chapter III. 



Prescott (2) states that maize was " the great agricultural 

 staple of both the northern and southern divisions of the 

 American Continent ; and which, after its exportation to the 

 Old World, spread so rapidly there, as to suggest the idea of 

 its being indigenous to it ". . . . " The misnomer of blc de Tur- 

 quie shows the popular error. Yet the rapidity of its diffusion 

 through Europe and Asia, after the discovery of America, is 

 of itself sufficient to show that it could not have been indi- 

 genous to the Old World, and have so long remained gener- 

 ally unknown there." 



Alphonse de Candolle, the famous Swiss botanist and 

 historian, who made a special study of the origin and history 

 of cultivated plants, came to the conclusion, as long ago as 

 1855, that "maize is of American origin, and has only been 

 introduced into the Old World since the discovery of the New. 

 I consider these two assertions as positive." Twenty-seven 

 years later he reiterated this view, and added : " The proofs of 

 American origin have since been reinforced. Yet attempts 

 have been made to prove the contrary, and as the French 

 name, blc de Turquie, gives currency to an error, it is as well 

 to resume the discussion with new data. . . . From all these 

 facts we conclude that maize is not a native of the Old World. 

 It became rapidly diffused in it after the discover)- of America, 

 and this very rapidity completes the proof that, had it existed 

 anywhere in Asia or Africa, it would have played an important 

 part in agriculture for thousands of years" (De Candolle, i). 1 

 He concludes that circumstantial evidence points to New- 

 Granada as the original home of the plant, and suggests that 

 the Chibchas, who occupied the table-land of Bogota at the 



1 Cf. Prescott (2) as quoted above. 



