read before the Academy of Sciences, at Paris, that its origin was in America. The name Blé de Turquie, no more proves it to be of Turkish origin, than the name of the English Horse Bean proves that that plant originally grew wild in Britain. The general cultivation of maize, in southern Europe, and the production of some new varieties, proves nothing with regard to the origin of the species. Nor, where it occurs in the East, there is no proof of its having been carried there previously to the discovery of America.
In favour of the American origin of maize, is the fact that it was found in a state of cultivation in most of the places where the first navigators landed. Columbus discovered it on the Island of Cuba, and other points, where he touched on his first voyage to America, Vasco Nuñez, in Guiana, Amadas and Barlow, in Florida, and Gonçalo Ximines, in New Granada,—the latter of whom, says, “The principal food of the natives was Maiz and Cassave, which first grows on stalks of the size of canes, bearing very large and weighty spikes or ears, each generally yielding seven hundred grains—a bushel of which, when planted in warm, moist land, frequently produces three hundred fold. The maize is distinguished into a coarser and a finer sort, which last is called Moroche, the leaves and stalks affording wholesome provender for horses, and the grains or kernels, bread for the inhabitants, who make it several ways; for sometimes they boil the corn in water, and at other times, parch it in ashes, or grind it into flour, which, when kneaded into dough, they make into cakes, biscuits, etc. Moreover, maize steeped in water, boiled, and afterwards fermented, makes a very strong liquor.”
All the early historians, both of North and South America, give the strongest testimony that this grain is of American origin, and speak of it as having constituted a great part of the food of the Indians from time immemorial.
Inca Garcilasso de la Vega, in treating of the products of Peru, says, “Of the fruits that grow above
