Plant Breeding

Cultivars adapted to different types of climatic conditions were also selected in ancient times. In North America, various Indian tribes developed and maintained lines of maize adapted to different temperature ranges. Colonel George Morgan of Princeton, New Jersey, collected so-called "Indian corns," which included the Tuscorora, King Philip, and Golden Sioux lines of field corn. An early sweet corn was also obtained from the tribes of The Six Nations (Iroquois) by U.S. General Sullivan in 1779. In July 1787, a visitor to Sullivan's garden noted: "he had Indian corn growing, in long rows, from different kinds of seed, collected from the different latitudes on this continent, as far north as the most northern parts of Canada, and south as far as the West Indies."