on Indian Corn

This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. John Winthrop Jr.'s lively account of Indian corn emerges from a 17th-century English drive to improve agriculture through experiment, exchange, and practical knowledge. Written in response to Robert Boyle's curiosity, the essay reflects the interests of Hartlib, Boyle, and the Royal Society in learning from colonial observers about useful crops and farming methods. Winthrop, a colonial governor and firsthand witness to maize's value, presents the grain as both scientifically intriguing and indispensable to survival. He compares older European doubts about corn with newer praise, then describes its beauty, resilience, and abundance: it bears colorful ears, repels weather and birds, and yields food, drink, fodder, syrup, and material for craft. The essay also preserves detailed Indigenous agricultural knowledge, from planting by seasonal signs and using fish as fertilizer to companion planting with beans, squash, and pumpkins. It explains harvesting, drying, storage, and the many ways corn was prepared as bread, porridge, travel food, and fresh food, while settlers adapted it into beer and other familiar forms. Practical, admiring, and richly descriptive, the work celebrates maize as a cornerstone of colonial and Native life.