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THE GREAT VARIABILITY OF MAIZE ADAPTING THE PLANT TO A RANGE OF CONDITIONS FROM THE EDGE OF THE ARCTICS TO THE TROPICS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD IS DIFFICULT TO ACCOUNT FOR UNLESS A MIXED ANCESTRY IS ASSUMED
at rare intervals in this variety. That the large-eared, compact-rowed, many-seeded variety now so familiar should be got out of the few-rowed, round-seeded, floury and flinty varieties grown by the Indians for many centuries is a really remarkable instance of plant improvement through hybridization followed by thorough-going selection.
The dent type of corn was not produced for the first time in Leaming as this kind of corn has been known since very early times having been reported to be in the possession of the Powhattan Indians as early as 1608. The characteristic indentation of this most productive kind of corn is due to a corneous outer layer surrounding a center of soft starch. The greater shrinkage of this soft starch than the hard starch outside on drying bring about the depressed and folded tip from which the type gets its name. The two kinds of corn grown by the natives of America were floury varieties in Mexico and adjacent regions and flint varieties in the north. That the combination of flint and floury types has made possible the dent corn now so widely grown is some what more than a surmise. The absence of leaves on the modified leaf sheaths forming the husks on the ears, a characteristic of dent corn, is common for floury corn but not flint corn. On the other hand the corneous nature of the endosperm and early maturity are largely flint features.
A familiar example of the rapidity with which varieties can be produced by crossing is furnished by the yellow varieties of sweet corn which have been introduced during the past few years. Practically all of them owe their start to a small eared, yellow seeded va-
