ABSTRACT
Afersh treatment of the introduction of American food plants into China seems justified. For, in the first place, although the question has been tackled by two generations of Western sinologues and anthropologists, certain important historical evidence has escaped their notice, and consequently the dates for the introduction of such plants must be revised upward. A new plant may score an immediate success in one region and remain neglected in another for a considerable time. The real puzzle which Laufer has bequeathed to anthropologists and to botanists is his conclusion that maize was already produced in prodigious quantities in late-sixteenth-century China. Besides, while citing the greatest Chinese materia medica, Pên-ts'ao kangmu of Li Shih-chen, completed in 1578, for unknown reasons Laufer omitted Li's most important qualifying statement: "Maize, originating from the western territories, is scantily grown. The history of maize in China, therefore, offers nothing that contradicts common agricultural experience.
