WHERE DID CORN COME FROM? 
long had it existed under the care of man that its ances¬ 
tors had quite disappeared. 
Yet corn, the scientists say, gives evidence of youth¬ 
fulness as a species. Old species are set in their ways; 
they are hard to change. New species yield readily to the 
graces of cultivation. Corn shows the evidences of youth 
in this respect. Bred in one direction it becomes sweet 
corn; in another, popcorn. Its grains can be bred white 
or yellow or red or blue. Through selection of seed its 
yield can be increased. It is pliant and responsive. It is 
young. 
Yet outside the cultivated field it cannot survive. It 
would seem a thing called into being by man and kept 
alive by him. But when and how it attached itself to 
him and how it got along before his coming is not known; 
that is one of the mysteries on the back track of civili¬ 
zation. 
169 
