lOO AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



CORN. 

 By Prof. Wm. D. Hurd, Orono. 



James G. Blaine once said, "Corn will yet be the spinal column 

 of the nation's agriculture." 



This seems to be a good year in which to boom corn in Maine, 

 and the talk that I am to give this afternoon is one in which I 

 hope to give you some information about corn. Perhaps some 

 of you have not understood all that is necessary in the improve- 

 ment of corn, and I hope what I may say will have some effect 

 in booming the corn industry in our State. There opens today 

 in Omaha a National Corn Exposition. This will be the largest 

 exposition of the kind that has ever been held in the world, and 

 as preliminary to what I am going to say I want to read from 

 a premium list of this exposition which I hold in my hand. The 

 first page is a sort of greeting from one of the leading corn 

 breeders. "Com is so common with the average farmer that 

 he seldom stops to think of the possibilities that lie within the 

 little germ or kernel that he annually plants in the ground. 

 Adding one kernel of corn to every ear grown would mean an 

 increase of five million bushels in the United States." 



"Think of what all this means not only to the corn grower 

 but to every merchant and professional man, in fact to every 

 man, woman and child in the country." 



Corn is the great American crop. Its history is interesting. 

 Corn was unknown in Europe before the discovery of America 

 by Columbus, but was no doubt grown by North, Central and 

 Southern America since prehistoric times. The early American 

 explorers found the Indians growing fields of maize. Squanto, 

 an Indian chieftain, taught the Puritans how to grow corn in 

 1621. When Cartier visited the region which is now Montreal 

 he found extensive fields of corn. Champlain found corn fields 

 east of the Kennebec river in 1603. In the Pequot war (1637) 

 the English destroyed over 200 acres of corn planted by the 

 Indians. The Puritans harvested some one thousand acres at 

 the time of King Philip's war, which had been planted by this 

 tribe. La Salle on his trip of exploration to the Great Lake 



