John Winthrop, Jr., on Indian Corn

Part 1

John Winthrop Jr. on Indian Corn

The New England Quarterly, Volume X, Number 1, March, 1937

By John Winthrop, Jr. and Fulmer Mood (Introduction)

Introduction

Fulmer Mood

There is some evidence to show that one of the effects of the civil wars on English agriculture was to bring about an increased interest in improved methods and new crops. The revolution in English farming that was eventually to follow included not only the reclamation of land by drainage and irrigation, but also the use of crops hitherto little known to the English: turnips and other roots, grasses, clover, and the like. It did not escape the attention of some of the thoughtful men of the period of the Restoration that an earlier importation, the potato plant, had become of vital importance in the economy of Stuart Ireland, and it was therefore only a short step forward to consider whether there were not still other crops which could be domesticated for use in English fields. The civil wars had brought about the economic ruin of many landlords, and so “spirited farming” rather than the traditional conservative methods began more and more to be thought of as a restorative of vanished fortunes.

Among the intellectuals of the day who concerned themselves with the problems of improving the efficiency of English agriculture were Samuel Hartlib and Robert Boyle. Hartlib published numerous treatises on agriculture, of which perhaps the best known is his Legacy of Husbandry (1655). We are more likely to think of Boyle’s name in connection with pure science and his leadership in organizing the Royal Society rather than in relation to agrarian arts, but Boyle, as a matter of fact, was a prominent figure in the discussion of the techniques of improved farming. Early in the life of the Royal Society a “Georgical Committee” of thirty persons was appointed; elaborate questionnaires were drawn up; and these were distributed in many parts of the kingdom. It was hoped that from the answers to these much useful information could be collected and reduced to order for the general advancement of English farmers.

Boyle was thoroughly at home with the scientific knowledge of the time, and his restless, curious mind roamed unceasingly through the many books of travel and records of exploration which had been accumulated by 1660 as a result of the visits of Englishmen to strange and remote lands. He was in the habit of ransacking Hakluyt, Purchas, and similar writers for information that might be of possible economic value. In the archives of the Royal Society at London there are still to be seen scores of sheets of notes which he made from Purchas and other compilations. When once Boyle isolated an item that interested him, he was in the habit of trying to test its value by having Englishmen who were leaving Europe make careful enquiries on the subject and then draw up reports which they were expected to send back to him. In the end Boyle worked out a systematic list of queries—a kind of “Intelligent Man’s Key to Intelligent Questions to Ask”—and published the list where all could read it in the Philosophical Transactions: “General Heads for a Natural History of a Country, great or small, imparted ... by Mr. Boyle.” A single excerpt suffices to show Boyle’s curiosity about foreign methods of farming. These are what travellers were requested to note and make reports about: “What the Nature of the Soyle is, whether Clays, Sandy, etc. or good Mould; and what Grains, Fruits, and other Vegetables, do the most naturally agree with it: As also, by what particular Arts and Industries the Inhabitants improve the Advantages, and remedy the Inconveniences of their Soyle: What hidden qualities the Soyle may have (as that of Ireland, against Venomous Beasts, etc.).”

Those with special information, if they happened to be close at hand, were not ignored. In January, 1662, John Winthrop, Junior, chanced to be in London on important business for the Connecticut colony, of which he was governor at the time. It was in this very month that Winthrop was elected to membership in the Royal Society. Boyle must at once have improved the opportunity to question this well-informed colonial, for under date of July 29, 1662, we find that Winthrop wrote to him, apologizing for his tardiness in satisfying Boyle’s request to supply him with certain information. He had written an essay on American maize, Winthrop explained, but modestly declared he had his doubts concerning the completed task:

... there will appeare many impertinences as to the cheife [sic] matters that concerne that subject (the husbandry of it being, as I remember chiefly desired, together with the manner of the bread and beare made out of it). What is added impertinently was intended to obviate some questions, and make knowne some other things that are only occasional, which I was the bolder to doe being intended only for your honors private view, and an other honorable friend [perhaps Henry Oldenburg, Secretary of the Royal Society] then present when I had your commands about it.

Maize was no novelty by the time of the Restoration. The Elizabethan herbalist, John Gerard (1545-1612), had looked into the qualities of the plant and penned an unfavorable judgment. In his great compilation, published first in 1597 and republished in 1633 and again in 1636, he wrote: “It is planted in the gardens of these Northern regions [Virginia and Norumbega?], where it commeth to ripeness when the summer falleth out to be faire and hot; as my selfe haue seen by proof in myne owne garden [near Fetter Lane in Holborn, London].” Maize or Indian corn

... doth nourish far lesse than either wheat, rie, barly, or otes. The bread which is made thereof is meanely white, without bran: it is hard and dry as Bisket is, and hath in it no clamminess at all; for which cause it is of hard digestion, and yeeldeth to the body little or no nourishment; it slowly descendeth, and bindeth the belly, as that doth which is made of Millet or Panick. Wee haue as yet no certaine proofe or experience concerning the vertues of this kinde of Corne; although the barbarous Indians, which know no better, are constrained to make a vertue of necessitie, and thinke it a good food: whereas we may easily judge, that it nourisheth but little, and is of hard and euill digestion, a more conuenient food for swine than for man.

A passage in Parkinson’s Theatricum Botanicum of 1640 set out to confute an opinion fantastic enough to win deathless obloquy from every right-thinking farmer west of the Alleghanies.

Many doe condemne this Maiz to be as dry and of as little nourishment as Millet or Panicke, but they doe not as I thinke rightly consider the thing, for although the graine be dry, yet the meale thereof is nothing so dry as of the Turkie Millet, but hath in it some clamminesse, which bindeth the bread close and giveth good nourishment to the body, for wee finde both the Indians and the Christians of all Nations that feede thereon, are nourished thereby in as good manner no doubt, as if they fed on Wheate in the same manner.... Of it is made drinke also, both in the Indies and our English plantations, that will intoxicate as quickly as our strong Beare if it bee made accordingly: but is found to be very effectuall to hinder the breeding of the Stone, so that none are troubled therewith that doe drinke thereof, the leaves thereof are used also to fatten their Horses and cattle.

Perhaps it was to settle this dispute between weighty authorities that Boyle asked Winthrop to write his little essay. The Anglo-American, for his part, was aware of Gerard’s opinion of maize, for he mentions the herbalist by name in his text. And we shall probably not go very far astray if we credit Boyle, too, with a knowledge of Gerard’s work.

Did Boyle think to introduce maize into England, if circumstances should prove favorable? There can be no certainty about the answer. Nevertheless, Boyle, despite his devotion to theory and science in general, was a man dominated by practical aims, and when he took the trouble to procure the writing of an essay on American corn, he had (it may be suspected) utilitarian motives in mind.

The essay is here published in full for the first time. An abbreviated text was brought out in an issue of the Philosophical Transactions in 1678. The original manuscript and Winthrop’s covering letter are now in the possession of the Royal Society, by the kindness of the council of which they are reproduced.

To students of our colonial cuisine no less than to those interested in agriculture the essay will be of value. It may serve, too, as a specimen of the descriptive or scientific prose of the age, and although the writing is hardly elegant, it is informed throughout by a sincere appreciation of the importance of corn in colonial economy that lends to it a modest degree of charm, if not of distinction.

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