CHAPTER XVI 

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Corn will yet be the spinal column of the nation's agriculture.— James G. 

 Blaine. 



/^Y ORN is the foundation of American agriculture, 

 I | but the full possibility of the crop is not yet 

 ^*^ appreciated. It is only within a decade or so 

 that it has been regarded as other than a rude, 

 primitive food for man and the feed par excellence for 

 meat producing animals. During the past few years, 

 however, attention has been directed to the economic 

 possibilities of the corn plant, and scientific study and 

 inventive genius have combined to open new lines of 

 commercial importance in connection with our great 

 cereal. 



The fact is only imperfectly realized that corn has 

 forms of commercial value other than as cattle food, 

 human food in the shape of meal, or for distillation of 

 spirits. Yet at the Paris Exposition of 1900 in the 

 American section there was exhibited a museum case 

 containing one hundred and eight separate commer- 

 cial products manufactured from corn. In this long 

 list there was no direct duplication, each article having 

 a different commercial use, though naturally there 

 were some items that were only differentiations of the 

 same product. But as each was intended for a differ- 

 ent use the list practically represented fully one hun- 

 dred commercial products. Such a list is a revelation 

 of the rapidly growing importance of corn as the raw 

 product base of manufacturing industry. 



Three Classes of Products — Roughly speaking the 

 commercial products of corn may be divided into those 



