58 
find no suggestion of mention in Le Jardinier Solitaire,, 
1612, nor in Laurembergius, 1631, two works on gardening: 
quite complete for their time. 
» Brassica oleracea capitata conica, DC. The Conical. 
Cabbage, the shape that of a long egg, the large end down- 
wards. The types of varieties named are the Chou Chicon, 
Chou d’Aubervilliers, the Chou de Battersea, the Chou a 
tete conique, and the Chou pain de sucre. The Sugar loaf 
Cabbage is mentioned by Townsend, 1726, Wheeler, 1763, 
Mawe, 1778, etc; and the Battersea by Townsend, 1726, and 
Stevenson, 1765. 
We may infer from this review that all our types of cab- 
bage existed in the last century, and furthermore that the 
Round-headed form is not only the oldest form in culture, 
but that it was the form most generally grown in the six~ 
teenth and seventeenth centuries. Quintyne, who was the 
gardener royal in France, published his first work in 1690, 
which was translated into English in 1693, scarcely men- 
tions the Cabbage, but gives some prominence to the cauli- 
flower, and most of all to lettuce. He evidently did not. 
grow for the royal table aught but the common kind, which 
was doubtless the round and the long sided. We may as- 
sume, therefore, that the other sorts had not received dis- 
tribution to France much preceding the eighteenth century.. 
INDIAN CORN. 
Through the kindness of Dr. Edward Palmer of the: 
Smithsonian Institution, I received in 1885 nine ears of 
corn collected from the Cocopa Indians, Sonora, and in 1886- 
fifteen ears collected from the Tarahumarer Indians, Mexico, 
and seventeen ears collected at the Indian village of San. 
Padro, Mexico. In 1884 I received six samples of the corn 
grown by the Zuni Indians, from Mr. F. H. Cushing, and pre- 
viously samples of Mandan corn said to be originally from the: 
region of the Upper Missouri ; the Wyandotte, said to have 
been formerly grown by the Indians of Illinois ; the Tusca- 
rora ; samples from Manitoba ; and Canada corn, tradition- 
ally carried back to Indian origin, as the Blue corn. In 
addition, for comparison, I have collected hundreds of 
named samples from various parts of the United States and 
Canada, those sold as seed-corn in France, and from Messrs. 
Landreth & Sons, of Philadelphia, samples procured from 
Africa, and have examined ears by the thousand from crops. 
grown from several hundred different seedings. From 
these sources I derive the conclusions that it is the object. 
of this paper to state. . 
The necessities of Agricultural Botany require a nomen- 
clature, whereby distinct forms can be readily distinguished, 
