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"...and having sown a tract of land with corn, waited until the grain was fit to cut."

It has to be a grain other than corn (maize), since that one came from the Americas.

Corn was actually a generic term.

It still is in British English (though this is apparently beginning to change? Bloody Americans :p).

It's generic in Norwegian too, although spelled with a k.

Corn still is a generic term.