Corn

a term of varied application. Scriptural corn is barley or wheat. Wheat and other small grains are known as corn in England, and in Scotland it was at one time customary to apply the term to oats. American corn is Indian corn or maize--the Mondamin of Hiawatha. Quite recently a wild plant resembling maize has been discovered in the mountains of Mexico. The Indians call it coyote corn, because the coyotes feed greedily on the young ears. Botanists consider it the wild ancestor of our cultivated corn.

Botanically, corn is a grass, from three to sixteen feet in height. Corn has two kinds of flowers, the tassel which produces pollen, and the young ear, the long pistils of which are known as silk. Every grain of corn has its thread of silk. The common axis on which the grains grow is known as a cob. The cob surrounded by grains is known as an ear. The ear is inclosed by long strip-shaped leaves known collectively as husks. The number of rows of grain on the cob is always an even number.

Corn is native to Central America. Specimens were carried to Europe by Columbus. It was cultivated by the aborigines of Central and North America, chiefly, of course, by the labor of the squaws. It will be remembered that the Pilgrims and the early settlers of Virginia obtained supplies of corn from the natives. Its cultivation has extended wherever climatic conditions permit. Argentina and Uruguay in South America raise corn. Egypt, Italy, Southern Russia, Austria-Hungary, and the countries of the southern Danube, also produce considerable quantities. The flour merchants of Central Europe are supplied with cornmeal from the mills, chiefly, of Hungary. The great corn region of the world, however, lies in North America, east of the one-hundredth meridian, and between the thirtieth and the forty-fifth degrees of latitude. The area of greatest production, the corn belt proper, is a strip of irregular width, passing from central Ohio westward between Chicago and St. Louis as far as the center of the boundary line which separates Kansas and Nebraska. Four-fifths of the world's corn crop is produced in the United States.

The range of corn is determined less by soil than by other conditions. Corn requires a warm summer, but cannot endure extreme heat or prolonged drouth. Its northern limit is determined by the length of the growing season, as corn is easily frosted. Efforts to produce varieties that mature early have been made, with encouraging results. The limit of profitable corn culture is 100 miles farther north than was deemed possible at the close of the Civil War. Other experiments carried on with intelligence through a number of years have resulted in improving the size of the kernel and general productiveness of corn. A good ear of corn may be described as tapering slowly, with a length of nine inches and a circumference of seven. It has long, wedge-shaped kernels, in from sixteen to twenty rows, with the tip well filled out, and a small cob easily broken out of the husk. One hundred pounds of such corn in the ear yield about ninety pounds of shelled corn. Successful farmers in the corn belt expect a yield of from 50 to 75 bushels of shelled corn to the acre, although the yield has been pushed considerably beyond the 100 bushel limit. The average yield in the corn belt, year in and year out, is 34 bushels. When planted 3 1-2 feet apart each way an acre contains 3,055 hills of corn.

The world's crop varies greatly from year to year according to rainfall, freedom from the attacks of insects, and lateness of the first autumnal frost. In 1899 the world produced 2,611,000,000 bushels; a year later, the combined yield of all corn-producing countries fell to a trifle over 2,000,000,000 bushels. In 1905 the United States alone produced 2,707,993,540 bushels. A recent writer has stated that if the corn crop of the United States were loaded on two-horse wagons, two tons to the load, and the wagons were to take the road, the nose of one team at the tail board of the wagon just ahead, the string of wagons would reach around the world six times.

Methods of cultivation vary greatly. The settler in a timbered country digs holes with a hoe among the stumps of his first clearing, and drops three or four kernels into each, thus raising a few bushels of corn of great service to himself and family. In the corn belt, where fields are broad, level, and free from obstructions, the work is done almost entirely by machinery. The land is turned over with gang plows, drawn by from three to five horses. The seed is dropped by a cornplanter which deposits a few kernels at regular intervals. The earth is stirred about the young plants and growing weeds are killed by the horse cultivator, or a series of small hoes swung from an axle and guided by the feet of the driver, who rides all day. The crop is cut with a corn harvester, that binds the stalks into sheaves and throws them off at one side. Husking by hand has been superseded in part by a cornshredder, a sort of threshing machine which shreds the stalks and shells and winnows the corn, delivering it into sacks at one side, like a threshing machine for small grain. The average amount of human labor required to produce a bushel of corn has been estimated at thirty-four minutes.

Considerable corn is consumed in the manufacture of cornmeal and cornstarch. As a food, corn ranks next to rice in the number of people it supports. Eleven million bushels of American corn are taken annually by the distilleries. Some corn is exported, but the bulk of it is used at home in feeding hogs, beef cattle, and work animals. In the absence of wild hay, many sections of the country depend almost entirely on corn fodder for rough feed. Intelligent feeders expect ten pounds of sound corn, fed under proper conditions to thrifty animals, to produce one pound of beef, five pounds of mutton, or four and one-half pounds of pork.

Much attention is paid to breeding corn. Raisers of seed are as eager for superior ears as dairymen are for a superior cow. At the Ames, Iowa, corn show of 1908 the champion ear sold for $28; the best ten ears brought $85; thirty ears sold for $65 and the prize bushel was bid in at $76. Secretary James Wilson of the United States Department of Agriculture, writing of the corn crop of 1908, says:

Greatest of all crops is Indian corn, the priceless gift of the Indian, who freely gave to the white man information which led to the production of 2,643,000,000 bushels this year. The value of this crop almost surpasses belief. It is $1,615,000,000. This wealth that has grown out of the soil in four months of rain and sunshine, and some drouth, too, is enough to cancel the interest-bearing debt of the United States and to pay for the Panama Canal and fifty battleships.

The following statement shows the estimated corn crop of 1909 by states:

Total . . . . . 2,741,345,000

The corn crop estimates given by the United States Department of Agriculture for 1907 were:

Total North America . . . . . 2,686,689,000

Total South America . . . . . 78,627,000

Total Europe . . . . . 481,475,000

Total Africa . . . . . 42,552,000

Total Australasia . . . . . 10,912,000

Grand Total . . . . . 3,300,255,000

Corn Laws, statutes designed to promote or regulate the supply of breadstuffs. Corn is to be understood in the Old World sense of grain, chiefly wheat. That food might be plenty the Athenians forbade the outward shipment of corn (wheat), and required Athenian ships loaded abroad to carry wheat to the home country only. Rome enacted corn laws, even to the extent of giving grain to the needy.

Corn laws form an important chapter in the history of England. From the time of the Norman Conquest exportation of corn was forbidden strictly. In 1436 it was decided to permit the exportation, so long as corn, i.e., wheat and barley, was cheap at home. In 1571 the government decided to revise the laws again. By this time three contending interests were apparent--working people wanted a cheap loaf; landowners wanted a high rental for wheat fields; and Parliament, in which land owners, but not working people, were well represented, required a revenue for the government. It was decided to allow the exportation of corn so long as it was cheap, and on condition that the shipper pay a tax of so much per bushel into the government treasury. This was a victory for the government.

A hundred years later and after some tinkering, importation was prohibited, practically so, at least, by a high tariff, except as the price in England might rise above a certain high price. This was a victory for the land owner. In 1688, the year of the English Revolution, and subsequent years, land-owning interests again prevailed and the government undertook to pay a bounty on every pound of wheat, rye, oats, or barley shipped to foreign countries. From this time on the debates on corn laws and minor changes were frequent. The upshot of the whole business was that the cheap loaf did not prevail until popular uprisings and the total failure of the potato crop in 1845 convinced Parliament that it would be wise to permit the buying and selling of foodstuffs without restriction. This new order went into effect in 1849; since which time the foodstuffs of America have been sold in Great Britain free from all but nominal taxation, and for many years the mere cost of inspection. It is interesting to note that there is talk of a revival of British import duties on breadstuffs.

See Cobden; Bright