THE VEGETABLES OF NEW YORK 



These two early records may have some bearing on 

 the question of the place of origin of corn which had been 

 thought for a long time to be Mexico because of the 

 occurrence there of corn's nearest ally, teosinte. Within 

 the past year, however, teosinte has been found wild 

 as far south as Guatemala. Moreover, the recent 

 theory of Professor Vavilov that the center of distribu- 

 tion of any cultivated species is the region showing the 

 greatest number of distinct types points to northwestern 

 South America. As regards maize, this theory was fore- 

 shadowed by Sturtevant's statement in 1894 1 that, " the 

 superior development of varieties ... is strong 

 evidence in favor of a South American origin." It is, 

 at least, certain that corn must have originated in the 

 higher regions of tropical or subtropical America, regard- 

 less of which theory of origin is finally accepted. 



Ears and cobs have been found in the pre-Columbian 

 storage places of Pueblos, Cliff-dwellers, Aztecs, and 

 Peruvians; and charred cobs and kernels have been dis- 

 covered in ancient pits throughout eastern North 

 America. 



In the southwestern United States ethnologists 

 recognize six culture periods, viz.. Basket Maker I, II, 

 and III, and Pueblo I, II, and III. They have estab- 

 lished the date 1275 A. D. for the ending of the last 

 period and buildings dated at 784 A. D. in Pueblo II 

 and 660 A. D. in Pueblo I have been noted; 2 but beyond 

 the probability that each period covered several centuries, 

 no evidence has yet arisen that has enabled them to 

 date the earlier periods with any degree of certainty. 

 However, a single type of flint corn has been found in 

 the period designated as Basket Maker II, and more 

 numerous forms in each succeeding period. 



" In Central America the beginnings of the Maya 

 culture go back at least seven centuries before Christ. 

 No actual plant remains survive in this wet country, 

 but we have representations in art of a corn god whose 

 head dress is a conventionalized ear of corn 

 These sculptures belong to the 4th and 5th centuries 

 A. D." 3 



Columbus was apparently the first European to 

 record corn when he wrote that he saw " a kind of 

 grain called maiz " on the island of Cuba in 1492. How- 

 ever, it is possible that Columbus was not the first to 

 see maize growing. The legends concerning the dis- 

 covery of corn, as well as grapes, by the Norsemen in 

 Wineland the Good, early in the eleventh century have 

 been pretty thoroughly discredited. Fernald 4 main- 

 tained on botanical evidence that if the legends were 

 to be accepted, then the plants noted in the Icelandic 

 sagas as " hveiti," and assumed by many writers to 



be maize, were lyme-grass, Elytnus arenarius, and 

 that the " vinber " were not grapes, but more probably 

 " wineberries," Vaccinium Vitis-idaea. Andrews, in a 

 review' of Fernald's paper, states that " Nansen with 

 the able assistance of his colleagues, Torp, Moe, and 

 others finds that the grapes and the self sown wheat 

 (hveiti) . . are an offshoot of common medieval 



legends of the ' Islands of the Blest ' . . " There 



are also legends'' of Norsemen, captured by the natives, 

 who were said to have traveled over a considerable 

 portion of eastern North America before finally escaping 

 to rejoin their countrymen in Greenland or Iceland. 

 If there is a real basis of truth in these tales, it is not 

 impossible that these hardy souls were the first Europeans 

 to have actual experience with maize. 



Eleven years after the discovery of maize in Cuba, 

 Diego Bartholomew " saw above six leagues of ground 

 full of maize and cultivated " on the American mainland. 

 " In 1520 the Spaniards in the battle with the Tepeacans 

 were embarrassed by the tall maize that covered part 

 of the plain." 7 In this same year " Magellan found 

 maize at Rio de Janiero," and the Spaniards found corn 

 of numerous types in Peru. Narvaez discovered maize 

 to be a bounteous crop in Florida and westward in 1528 

 and " during De Soto's invasion, 1540, maes was found 

 everywhere along his route from Florida and Alabama 

 to the upper part of the Mississippi, probably on the 

 western bank of the Yazoo, in fields or stored in gran- 

 aries." " When Cartier visited Hochelaga, now Mont- 

 real in 1535, that town was situated in the midst of 

 extensive corn fields, ' the grain even as the millet of 

 Brazil, as great and somewhat bigger than small 

 peason.' " 



Excerpts from the records of all the early adventurers 

 in America tell us this same story of maize in compara- 

 tive abundance from the Great Lakes of North America 

 to the highlands of Peru and from Brazil back to what 

 is now the state of Washington — not only was corn 

 grown abundantly, but there were numerous varieties, 

 yellow, red, blue, black, white, pink, and pied; small 

 kerneled and large; hard corns and soft corns; few- 

 rowed and many-rowed. In fact, in so far as varieties 

 of maize are concerned, one might well say " there is 

 nothing new under the sun " for the Indians seem to 

 have had practically every type that we now know and 

 seem to have paid a great deal of attention to some 

 types, particularly color forms, that are unfamiliar to 

 most people today. 



" In Europe, maize is said by Benzoni, who wrote 

 in 1572, to have been brought by Columbus on his 

 return from America to Spain, along with parrots and 



'Sturtevant, E. L. Notes on maize. Bui. Torrey Bot. Club., 21:34/. 1894. 



-Cotton, H. S. Science, ~7: 240. 1933. 



3 This quotation is from a letter of Dr. Herbert J. Spinden, Curator of Ethnology, Brooklyn Museum. The preceding paragraph is 

 likewise largely an adaptation from the same letter. It is a pleasure to acknowledge our indebtedness to Dr. Spinden for the information 

 given therein. 



* Fernald, M. L. Notes on the plants of Wineland the Good. Rhodora, 12:17. 1910. 



i Andrews, Leroy. Rhodora, 15:28. 1913. 



6 See in this connection, Fiske, John, Discovery of America, 1 : 244 {{. 1893. 



' Sturtevant's Notes on Edible Plants, 610. 1919. The preceding quotation as well as those following which are without reference 

 are from the same source. 



