A History of Agriculture in India v2.c72.s5: Discovery of the New World—A New Source of Plants
A History of Agriculture in India v2.c72.s5
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Discovery of the New World—A New Source of Plants
v2.c72.s5.1
Out of the Italian States, Venice had comparatively easy relations with the Turks. This was resented by Genoa, the rival of Venice. Genoese sailors and mariners, in search of employment and adventure, came to Spain and Portugal. Christopher Columbus, a Genoese, who had ideas of a new route to Asia, approached Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Helped by the merchants of Palos, Columbus got three ships, of which the biggest was *Santa Maria* of 100 tons burthen. Crossing the Atlantic, with eighty-eight men, Columbus struck Watling Island, one of the Bahamas, on 11 October 1492, and gave it the name San Salvador. As he thought he had reached India, he named the islands the West Indies, which, though wrong, has stuck. He brought cotton, strange birds and animals, and two painted Indians with him to Spain to be baptized.
v2.c72.s5.2
These discoveries opened up a new source of plants which enriched the agriculture of the Old World. Apart from maize, the New World had potato, sweet-potato, arrowroot, cassava (tapioca), beans, tomato, chillies, pumpkin, papaya, pineapple, guava, custard-apple, groundnut, cashewnut, tobacco, American cotton and rubber. It also had varieties of plums, red and white grapes, sunflower, squash, and sarsaparilla. Among the flowering annuals, it had morning-glory, nasturtium and marigolds.