habitable globe, between the forty-third degree of north latitude, and a corresponding parallel south. Its principle culture is confined to the United States, Mexico, the West Indies, and most of the states of South America. It is also cultivated with success in Spain, Portugal, Lombardy, and may be grown in southern Europe generally. It is likewise found to thrive in India, China, Japan, Australia, the Sandwich Islands, as well as in the groups of the Azores, the Madeiras, Canaries, and numerous other ocean isles.
Roulin, Humboldt, Bonpland, and others, have noticed this plant in its indigenous state in America, and hence have concluded that it was first derived from this country. Mathioli, Cieça, Zeri, and Inca Garcilasso, have also confirmed this opinion. Fuchs, on the contrary, very early maintained that it came from the East. Michaud, Daru, and Bonafous, state that it was known in Asia Minor before the discovery of America; and Crawford, in his “History of the Indian Archipelago,” tells us that maize was cultivated by the inhabitants of these islands, under the name of djagoung, long before that period. In the “Natural History of China,” composed by Li-Chi Tchin, towards the middle of the XVIth century, a rude figure is given of the Zea mays, under the title of la-chou-cha; and Rifaud, in his “Voyage en Egypte, &c, from 1805 to 1807,” observes, that he discovered this grain in a subterranean excavation in a remarkably good state of preservation. M. Virey, however, in the “Journal de Pharmacie,” refutes these statements, by showing that these authors have mistaken the Indian millet (Sorghum vulgare) for maize, and that the grain found by Rifaud, was the Sorghum bicolor, which, according to Delile, is a native of Egypt. Regmir and Gregory attempt to present fresh arguments in favour of the Eastern origin of this plant. Among them is the name by which it has long been known in Europe, Blé de Turquie; and varieties of it, they state, have been brought from the Isle of France, or from China. Moreau de Jonnés, on the contrary, has more recently maintained in a memoir
