INDIAN CORN. 343 



that title is due to corn. Its cultivation is not like cotton, 

 confined to one belt or to one soil, but it -will grow on the 

 sandy hills, or the alluvial bottoms, on the moist savan- 

 nahs of the South, and upon the highest peaks of the 

 Eastern States, it having been successfully grown on eleva- 

 tions eight thousand feet above the sea. 



An expressive mode of representing the range of this 

 staple is, by reference to extreme points on the several 

 meridians of longitude, from the Atlantic coast westward; 

 and though we have no abrupt limits at the South other 

 than those of the continent itself, or none in climate at 

 4east, we shall find the, measure of distance on these lines of 

 longitude of some service. The bay of Fundy and the 

 valleys of New Brunswick bring this cultivation up to the 

 46th parallel, at from 64° to 67° of west longitude. In the 

 highlands of Maine it falls off to less than 45°, and in New 

 Hampshire to 44°. But it then rises abruptly to 47|°at St. 

 Anne's and at Quebec 72° west longitude. The moun- 

 tainous parts of New York and some parts of Western 

 Canada, between the Ottowa river and Lake Huron, permit 

 no cultivation of this crop ; but the river valleys and better 

 portion of the country have some adaptation to it, to the 

 46° of latitude, as far west as Lake Huron at 82° of west 

 longitude. The influence of the lakes and the elevation, 

 reduce the summer temperature so much at this point, as to 

 throw the limiting line southward to 45° of latitude, and 

 this line continues west almost to the Mississippi. Passing 

 this elevated district and approaching the warmer summer 

 of the plains, it goes abruptly north to 50° of latitude, at 

 Lake Winnepeg 97° west longitude. This is probably its 

 highest point, and measured on this meridian we have 23° 

 of latitude in the United States, and the whole amount of 

 35° for the American continent, as the range of a single 

 cultivated staple, and everywhere on this line, it is at least 

 equal to any other in value. Westward of this line the 

 range becomes so irregular and exceptional between the ex- 



