164 



DESCRIPTION OF FEEDING STUFFS 



sidered in the order of their importance for this purpose, followed 

 by the minor grains, leguminous seeds, and oil-bearing seeds. 



Indian corn (maize, Zea mays) is the most important cereal 

 crop in our country. In 1909 the area in corn made up more than 

 one-half of the entire acreage devoted to grain raising ; wheat com- 

 ing second, with 2.8 per cent of the total acreage, and oats third 

 (20 per cent of the total acreage). Corn was grown on 82 out of 

 every 100 American farms, according to the United States census 

 of that year. While Indian corn may be grown successfully in 

 every State in the Union, it thrives best and reaches its greatest 

 importance as a cereal and a forage plant in the vast interior of our 

 continent, lying between the large eastern and western mountain 

 ranges, especially in the prairie States in or near the Mississippi 

 valley. The latter are generally spoken of as the " Corn belt/' 

 The most important corn-producing States, according to the census 

 of 1909, were: 



Illinois (with a production of 390,000,000 bushels), Iowa 

 (342,000,000), Indiana (195,000,000), Missouri (191,000,000), 

 Nebraska, Ohio, and Kansas following in the order given, each with 

 yields of over 150,000,000 bushels of corn. The entire corn crop 

 for the whole United States for the year given aggregated nearly 

 a billion and a half dollars in value. 



Corn is the most variable of all cereals, both as regards the size 

 to which it grows and the form of the kernel of the different varie- 

 ties. " In the South the tropical corn stems, four or five months 

 from planting, carry great ears burdened with grain so high that 

 a man can only touch them by reaching high above his head. At 

 the other extreme, the Mandan Indian in the country of the Bed 

 River of the North developed a race of corn which reached only to 

 the shoulders of the squaw, with tiny ears borne scarcely a foot from 

 the ground on pigmy stalks/' (Henry.) 



There are six different races of Indian corn, but only three 

 of these are of importance for feeding farm animals, viz., dent, 

 flint, and sweet corn. The average composition of these races is as 

 follows : 



Average Chemical Composition of Indian Corn, in Per Cent 



