Perhaps The Most Important Thing America Contributed To The World Was Indian Corn Or Maize

Perhaps the most important single thing and product the Americas, identified in the Book of Mormon as “the land of promise,” has given the word, was not A New Witness For Christ, nor the Gospel; neither was it tomatoes, potatoes, nor tobacco; but it was Indian maize known today to us as corn. One reliable agriculture scientist states that in just the United States alone, before inflation and high prices, the hybrid corn crop has added One Hundred Billion Dollars of wealth to the American economy in the value of the farm output, plus the other tremendous benefits such as proliferous amounts of food that benefits the hungry the world over, each year. Yet the Book of Mormon does not even mention this wonderful, most beneficial, prolific plant, and does not seem to know anything about it.

While the specific word “corn” is found three times in the Book of Mormon (Mosiah 7:22; 9:9, 14), there is nothing to imply that the Indian MAIZE was meant. The Bible Dictionary informs us that in Biblical times:

“The most common kinds (of corn) were wheat, barley, spelt, rye, fitches and millet. Our Indian corn was unknown in Biblical times.” (Wm. Smith’s Bible Dictionary, p. 126)

So we see that at least one of the most important things to from America, if not the most important, Indian Maize, was apparently unknown to the Book of Mormon people, For a book of fiction this is readily understandable and not unusual.