It has fallen to my lot more than once to be told by Americans 'You have no corn in England.' At first I felt somewhat insulted by this assertion - especially as we were at the time journeying by rail through a part of the country where the yellow corn, in the ear and in the sheaf, gladdened the eye and made one rejoice in a plentiful harvest. But, of course, according to American notions, we have no corn in England, for they confine the term corn to the one cereal maize, which is believed to have been indigenous in America, and unknown to Europe before the time of Columbus. The Americans are, undoubtedly, wrong in limiting the term corn to maize, because long before the discovery of America corn was the generic term for wheat, barley, oats, and rye, and maize received its name of Indian corn from the first European settlers in America, who found it growing there, and in use by the natives as the only bread-stuff. We all know Longfellow's charming description of the birth of this beautiful plant in 'The Song of Hiawatha.' After the hero had buried Mondamin, who was the maize personified -

Day by day did Hiawatha

Go to wait and watch beside it,

Kept the dark mould soft above it,

Kept it clean from weeds and insects

Drove away with scoffs and shoutings,

Kahgahgee, the king of ravens;

Till at length a small green feather

From the earth shot slowly upward.

Then another and another,

And before the summer ended

Stood the maize in all its beauty,

With its shining robes about it,

And its long, soft, yellow tresses.

And in rapture Hiawatha

Cried aloud, 'It is Mondamin!

Yes, the friend of man, Mondamin !'

Then he called to old Nokomis,

And Iagoo the great boaster;

Showed them where the maize was growing;

Told them of his wondrous vision,

Of his wrestling and his triumph,

Of this new gift to the nations,

Which should be their food for ever.

Well may this plant be called 'the friend of man,' for since its first introduction it has spread more rapidly than could have been supposed possible, being cultivated in every land where the climate will allow it to ripen; but when we find savages in the heart of Africa, who apparently have never met with a white man, cultivating this plant, we become somewhat sceptical as to its introduction by white men since the days of Columbus.

It is undoubted that agriculture was known very early in some parts of America, and that maize was the chief cereal grown, although millet and beans were also cultivated. Now, although maize was found by Darwin in a raised beach on the coast of Peru, 85 feet above sea-level, and must therefore have been of vast antiquity in America, yet all the American legends relating to it tell of its introduction or cultivation by foreigners, coming from the sea. Quetzalcoatl in Mexico, Manco Capac in Peru, Hiawatha among the wild Indian tribes of North America, are some of these legendary introducers of this great boon to man.

The existence of these legends with regard to maize is curious, because no similar legends, except in China, exist in the Old World with regard to the first cultivation of wheat, barley, and rye; and the American legends have not found their way to those remote parts of Asia and Africa where maize has certainly been grown for centuries, although legends are generally caught up eagerly and passed from mouth to mouth among savages, who are ever ready to invest that which is new with some marvellous attribute.

Botanists all assign an American origin to maize, and believe its native home to be Paraguay, or some region of Central America, and therefore it is assumed that it was unknown in the Eastern Hemisphere before the days of Columbus, who is said to have introduced it into Spain in 1520. But it is reported to have been found growing at the Cape at the time of its first discovery by the Portuguese in 1493, and we are told it is figured in an old Chinese book of botany in the national library of Paris; and grains of maize are said to have been found in ancient houses in Athens, as well as in the wrappings of Egyptian mummies, whilst some have supposed that this was the 'corn of Egypt.' This, however, is hardly possible, seeing that it has never yet been found figured on the monuments of Egypt, whilst wheat is frequently represented.

The first notice of this corn is found in 'The Nieue Her-ball,' published in London in 1578, where it is described as Frumentum Turcicum or Frumentum Asiat/cum, in French, Ble de Turquie or Ble Sarazin; in English, Turkey corn or Indian wheat; and the author says of it, 'This grayne groweth in Turkie wher as it is used in time of dearth,' adding, 'There is as yet no certain experience of the natural vertues of this corne. The bread that is made thereof is drie and harde, having very small fatnesse or moysture, wherefore men may easily judge that it nourisheth little, and is evill of digestion.'

One thing is certain, whatever may have been the origin of maize, and the date of its first cultivation in America and in the Old World, it is now grown very extensively in all parts of the world in which the climate is suitable, even in the heart of savage Africa and in Madagascar, forming everywhere one of the staple foods of man. It does not ripen always with us, but might, I believe, be grown advantageously to supply the market with that delicious vegetable so highly esteemed in America and South Africa {green corn), which we now only get in tins from America. Tinned green corn and succotash, which is a mixture of green corn and beans, have of late years found their way into English households, and very good they are, but the corn on the cob, as eaten in America, is better, as all who have tasted it will testify.

Although maize appears to have been early known in China, it is not named among the five sorts of corn cultivated by the Chinese in the days of Chin-Nong, their second emperor, or the head of the second dynasty - some historians placing seventeen emperors between him and Fohi, who, according to the Chinese annals, reigned over a people differing little from brutes. Fohi taught the people to fish, and to domesticate animals for food, and Chin-Nong instructed them in agriculture, inventing the necessary implements of husbandry, and teaching the people to sow five sorts of grain, hence his name, which signifies Heavenly Husbandman. On the fifteenth day after the sun enters Aquarius, which is the commencement of Spring, a feast is held in honour of husbandry and celebrated husbandmen, numerous figures in connection with this art are carried in procession, and among them a huge cow of clay, so large that forty men can with difficulty carry it Behind this cow, whose horns are gilt, is a young child with one foot naked and one covered, representing the genius of labour and diligence. The child strikes the earthen cow without ceasing with a rod, as if to drive her forwards. She is followed by all the husbandmen with musical instruments, and by companies of masquers. At the governor's palace this cow is broken in pieces, and the fragments, with a number of small cows taken from the larger one, are distributed to the multitude, whilst the governor makes a discourse in praise of agriculture.