The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1894-01-17

L
ted that floating gardens were con-
structed, upon which all products OF
the soil known to them, particularly
maize and beans, were sown. There
gardens were constructed with logs
overlaid with earth. They have been
described by historians as fairy
islets of flowers overshadowed by trees
of considerable size" Even to this
day such floating islands are built and
anchored in Mexican lakes for pur-
poses of pleasure.
The ruins of great irrigation works
testify to the extent and development
of the cultivation Of maize by the an
cient Peruvians. Their tombs COM
monty contained corn, either in the
ear or the grain. The bodies of these
people were buried in a squatting po-
sition, with the knees drawn up be-
meath the chin, and were rolled and
tied in mats. Heads of corn and cop
per agricultural implements were In
cluded in the rolling. With the
corpse were usually placed water
vessel and pot with grains Of maize
All along the coast Of Peru for l,2OO
miles are scattered thousands of such
prehistoric tombs. Darwin unearthcd
some ears of corn on the seashore, In
a stratum which had evidently been
raised by geologic action from nearer
the sea level, and to them he assigned
a great antiquity.
In the houses of the ancient cliff
dwellers, in southwest Colorado and
northern New Mexico, stalks, husks,
tassels, cobs and kernels Of corn are
found. That some of this material is
as old as the buildings is proved by
the fact that the stalks were used in
the construction of the floors, being
imbedded in the abode. The cobs
were also utilized to fill up chinks in
the walls. They were about three
feet long. These habitations have
been deserted for at least five hundred
wears. Further south is the land OF
the living cliff-dwellers, in the Sierra
Madre, between the Mexican States
of Chihuahua and Sonora. There re-
side, on cliffs or in caves, savages
who worship the sun and plant lit
tie maize on the steep hill sides with
out cultivation, though otherwise they
do not till the soil at all.
During the long winter that follow
ed the landing of the Puritans, in
1920, they subsisted in large measure
on corn purchased from the aborigines
In the next year an Indian named
Squant, taught them how to plant it
and how to fertilize the soil with fish.
Thus they were enabled to grow about
twenty acres of it. The Indians had
many ways of preparing maize, mixing
it with beans, chestnuts and whortle-
berries. They made pottage OF 1t
by boiling it with fresh or dried meat
and dried pumpkins, sometimes sweet
ening it with maple sugar. They also
boiled pounded hickory nut kernels
with the meal, and sometimes they
made bread composed Of corn meal
mixed with smoked eels and oysters or
clans.
Like other vegetables of the garden
and field, Indian corn has been much
improved and altered by cultivation.
The form in which it now appears
would soon vanish save for the agen-
cy of man. To preserve it the kernels
must be sown, for the latter are too
large to be carried by the winds, and
the sheathing husks prevent animals
from getting at the grain and distrib-
uting it. The provision made by ma
ture for the reproduction of maize is
even unusually ample, the number of
pollen grains furnished by each plant
being about 100000. Of course,
each kernel must be fertilized by
grain of pollen in order that it may
ripen. Allowing two ears of 1000
kernels to each plant, there are 5000
pollen grains for every kernel.
A kernel of corn is a wonderful
thing in it's way. 1t is a box of starch,
its outer coat being of a woody mate
rial and very hard, for the protection
of the germ in the middle. The latter
is surrounded by grains Of starch most
beautifully packed, their arrangement
under the microscope having an ap-
pearance resembling crystalline
structure. They are the baby food of
the future plant, designed to furnish
it with nourishment in the earliest
stage of it's growth. The so-called
germ is itself merely an oily and high
ly nutritious envelope for the actual
microscopic germ of life which it con-
tains.