38 THE BOOK OF USEFUL PLANTS 



Of the stupendous corn crops raised in the 

 United States only 4 per cent, goes to other 

 countries as grain and meal. We feed the rest to 

 cattle and hogs, and ship the meat. This brings 

 the farmer much more money, and returns to the 

 land much of the best fertilizing elements in the 

 manure from the yards where stock is fattened. 

 The man who sells his corn from the crib robs his 

 land, year after year. He must fertilize it, and 

 buying commercial fertilizers is a costly method. 



Better corn and more of it result from careful 

 selecting of seed, and sorting and testing it before 

 planting time. This is an important step in the 

 great forward movement in farming to-day. 



THE RACES OF CORN 



We find in New England cornfields, sweet corn 

 and flint corn; in the Corn Belt of the Central 

 States, chiefly the yellow dents; in the South, white 

 dent varieties. Dent corns have their starchy 

 content extended to the top of the grain, and 

 shrinking at maturity, thus forming the dent, or 

 depression. Flint corn is not so, for the starchy 

 centre is overlaid with the layer of hard, horny 

 material that does not shrink. 



Pop corn is small, and its grains explode into a 



