. The book of corn; a complete treatise upon the culture, marketing and uses of maize in America and elsewhere, for farmers, dealers, manufacturers and others--a comprehensive manual upon the production, sale, use and commerce of the world's greatest crop . pointed, small, and slightlyindented at the apex, lapping one over the other inthirteen rows. Although nearly all parts of tropical and sub-tropical America have been explored by a great num-ber of botanists, none has found corn in the conditionof a wild plant, and the original form of the species isnot identified as yet. Probably it may be
. The book of corn; a complete treatise upon the culture, marketing and uses of maize in America and elsewhere, for farmers, dealers, manufacturers and others--a comprehensive manual upon the production, sale, use and commerce of the world's greatest crop . pointed, small, and slightlyindented at the apex, lapping one over the other inthirteen rows. Although nearly all parts of tropical and sub-tropical America have been explored by a great num-ber of botanists, none has found corn in the conditionof a wild plant, and the original form of the species isnot identified as yet. Probably it may be a compositespecies of which no single form can be taken as thetype. Some botanists consider that Indian corn orig-inated from teosinte (Euchlaena Mexicana), an annualfodder grass, similar to corn in general appearance HISTORY OF THE CORN PLANT 3 and in the structure of the flowers, but differing in notforming an ear. This is extensively grown in Mexicoand as experiments in crossing teosinte and corn haveresulted in producing cornlike plants, the very closeaffinity of the two plants is clearly proven. In summing up the conditions of Indian corn andits habitation in America before it was cultivated, thefamous French botanist, A. de Candolle, says: We. 33° 331 332 Fig 2—Uniform Ears of Boone County White have nothing but conjectural knowledge. Maize is aplant singularly unprovided with means of dispersionand protection. The grains are hard to detach fromthe ear, which is itself enveloped. They have no tuftor wings to catch the wind, and when the ear is notgathered by man the grains fall still fixed in the recep-tacle, and then rodents and other animals must destroy 4 THE BOOK OF CORN them in quantities, and all the more that they are notsufficiently hard to pass intact through the digestiveorgans. Probably so unprotected a species was be-coming more and more rare in some limited regions,and was on the point of becoming extinct, when a wan-dering tribe of savages, having percei
Size: 1746px × 1431px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidbookofcornco, bookyear1904
