130 IOWA DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE 



the yield of corn, and have absolutely neglected the importance of car- 

 ing for the corn after it is harvested, with the idea of making it most 

 valuable commercially, and putting it in shape to keep well in trans- 

 portation and in store. 



I also wish to sound a note of warning to the corn growers, that too 

 much water in corn is a, dangerous thing. In this particular, I refer to 

 the inherent moisture that is grown into the corn or contained in the 

 grain before it is harvested. The state of South Carolina prohibits the 

 sale of any corn v/ithin the state that shows more than 30 per cent of 

 acidity, and such corn may be confiscated under the law of that state. 

 Mr. E. J. Watson, commissioner of agriculture of the state of South 

 Carolina, in his address before the Grain Dealers' National Association, 

 at Norfolk, last October, said: 



"There are going to be some startling developments connecting King 

 Corn with the disease of pellagra." 



He asserted that this disease is a result of the excess of acidity in 

 corn, and that this excess of acidity is the result of fungus growth that 

 develops in the corn. He says: 



"The relation of moisture is simply this — moisture back in the field 

 before the corn is taken out, naturally, essentially is the basic founda- 

 tion of the fungi." 



The point that I am trying to emphasize in this connection is the 

 great necessity of giving more attention to the growing and curing of 

 the corn to avoid the disastrous results that I have mentioned, and also 

 to produce corn that will be more valuable for feeding and manufac- 

 turing purposes. 



As I have already stated, corn when offered for sale by the farmers, 

 immediately after husking, usually contains from 18 to 30 per cent of 

 water, and it is not until after January 1st that any of it as a rule be- 

 comes cured out sufficiently to reduce the moisture content to 16 per 

 cent, which is, in fact, about the minimum percentage of water content 

 of any corn sold by the farmers, unless it may be in the very last days 

 of an old crop, when the corn has passed through the heat of the 

 summer. 



The grain trade has always suffered heavy losses in the handling 

 of corn, because of it getting into a heating condition while in transit 

 or in store, because of an excessive moisture content. A few years ago, 

 heavy shipments of corn were made from this state to the southern 

 distributing markets of St. Louis, Memphis, Louisville, most of which 

 arrived in a heating condition. There were no driers in those markets 

 that could be used in the handling of this corn, and nothing could be 

 done except to forward it to New Orleans, where hundreds of carloads 

 were finally dumped into the gulf. The condition of this corn became 

 so bad while standing on the tracks at New Orleans that the health 

 authorities insisted upon disposing of it in this manner. 



Since the Department of Agriculture began the investigation of the 

 moisture content of corn, and subsequently the invention of the moisture 



