Maize is no less important to the rapidly-growing nations of America than the rice-plant to the followers of Buddh or of Brama. The time when the cereals of the old world were first transplanted from their unknown Asiatic homes is, and ever will be, hidden in legendary obscurity; but the epoch when maize was for the first time seen and tasted by Europeans lies before us in the broad daylight of authentic history. For, when Columbus discovered Cuba, in the year 1492, he found maize cultivated by the Indians, and was equally pleased with the taste of the roasted grains and astonished at their size. In the following year, when he made his triumphant entry into Barcelona, and presented his royal patrons--Ferdinand and Isabella--with specimens of the various productions of the New World, the maize-spikes he laid down before their throne, though but little noticed, were in reality of far greater importance than the heaps of gold which were so falsely deemed to be the richest prizes of his grand discovery. In this manner maize was first conveyed from the New World to Spain, whence its cultivation gradually extended over the tropical and temperate zones of the eastern hemisphere. Round the whole basin of the Mediterranean, maize has found a new home, and its grain now nourishes the Lombard and the Hungarian, as it does the Egyptian fellah or the Syrian peasant. While our northern cereals only produce a pleasing effect when covering extensive fields, but are individually too insignificant to claim attention, the maize-plant almost reminds the spectator of the lofty Bambusaceæ of the tropical world. Even in our gardens it rises above a man’s height, and in warmer countries not seldom attains the gigantic stature of fourteen feet. Ensiform, dark green, lustrous leaves, somewhat resembling those of the large oarweeds of the northern seas, spring alternately from every joint of this cereal, streaming like pennants and sharply rustling in the wind. The top produces a bunch of male flowers of various colours, which is called the _tassel_. Each plant likewise bears three or more spikes or ears, proceeding from the stem, at various distances from the ground, and closely enveloped by several thin leaves, forming a sheath, or _husk_. They consist of a cylindrical substance of the nature of pith, which is called the _cobb_, and over the entire surface of which the seeds are ranged and fixed, in eight or more straight rows. Each of these has generally as many as thirty or more seeds, and each seed weighs at least as much as five or six grains of wheat or barley. Surely a cereal like this deserves beyond all others to symbolise abundance, and, had it been known to the Greeks, it would beyond all doubt have figured conspicuously in the teeming horn of Amalthea.