CHAPTER XII 



THE INDIAN CORN CROP 



THIS is the great cereal crop of the United States. 

 Wheat may rank higher as an export crop direct, 

 but the com crop is the great feed crop of 

 America, and while not so largely exported as grain, the 

 results of feeding it to cattle and hogs make the export of 

 beef, pork, etc., a very important item. Owing to the wide 

 range of climate to which Indian com has become adapted 

 it has become the most important forage and feed crop of 

 America, thriving, in its numerous varieties from Maine 

 to Texas. Through the central Western States we have 

 what is called the great com belt, where, owing to the 

 virgin fertility of the soil, its cultivation on a large scale 

 has made these states the great stock, dairy and pork 

 producing sections of the country. 



But com is naturally a plant of the tropics, and the 

 longer seasons of the cotton belt make this section pe- 

 cuHarly adapted to the cultivation of the crop since there 

 is never any risk from early frosts catching it as there is 

 in a large part of what is called the com belt. But in the 

 South, the exclusive devotion of the farmers to the cotton 

 crop has led to careless cultivation of corn, and in many 

 sections to a dependence on the West for all the com 

 needed. Added to this, the careless selection of seed, 

 which has allowed the plant to attain the natural devel- 



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