INDIAN CORN. 345 



tible of cultivation at any point where the mean tempera- 

 ture of the month of July is not less than 64° Fah. 



The observations upcfn which the above facts are com- 

 piled, were made principally by military commanders and 

 missionaries, at the outposts of the North, during a period, 

 ranging from one to twenty-one years. 



The corn plant or its grain formed the subject of very 

 imposing ceremonies among the Indians, and the "corn 

 dance," at the time it came into its roasting-ear state, was 

 looked forward to by both young and old as the foreruner of 

 fun and frolic, with the belles of the wood, the aged for 

 its more solid uses, as it then formed the great and nearly 

 only luxury of the Indian. Although much has been 

 written to prove its Eastern origin, it did not grow in that 

 part of Asia traversed by Alexander the Great, as Nearhus 

 the commander of the fleet has left a work giving the names 

 of all the productions of the country, and describing them. 

 Corn is not of the number. Nor is there any account 

 of it among the works of any of the ancient au- 

 thors. In fact, until Columbus discovered America, it had 

 never entered the annals of the historian. But in America 

 it was not only found in cultivation, but it was subsequent- 

 ly found growing wild all along the foot of the Rocky 

 Mountain range, though here each grain was clothed 

 in a separate husk which, however, it looses, in a few 

 years, by cultivation. Nor was its cultivation confined 

 by any means to North America, for La Vega tells us 

 that one of the Incas o,f Peru had a miniature garden 

 at his palace in which was maize of some size, and 

 in quantity sufficient to represent a field made entirely 

 of silver and gold, and that it had the grain, leaves, and 

 even the tassels all complete, as in the natural state ; an ev- 

 idence of the veneration of this people for this cereal. 



Among Europeans the " London Colonists," on James 

 River, have the credit of its first cultivation in 1608. They 

 were taught by the Indians, and with some improvement in 



