BYRON – The Byron Forest Preserve District will be offering the first of its free 2019 Winter Lecture Series on Sunday, Feb. 10 beginning at 2 p.m. at the Jarrett Prairie Center Museum, 7993 North River Road in Byron.
The program is free and no advance registration is required. For more information call 815 234-8535, Ext. 200 or visit their website at www.byronforestpreserve.com.
Writer and food historian, Cynthia Clampitt will present “Corn: How it Changed Itself and Then Changed Everything Else.” Learn about the fascinating history of corn, something that we take for granted in the Midwest. About 10,000 years ago, a weedy grass growing in Mexico possessed a strange trait known as a “jumping gene” transforming itself into a large and more useful grass - the cereal grass that we would come to know as maize and then corn. Nurtured by prehistoric farmers, this grain would transform the Americas even before first European contact.
After first contact, it would span the globe, with mixed results, but for newcomers to North America it would expand its influence and help create the economy of the Midwest. Today, we have become dependent on the production of corn more than ever.
