114 ELEMENTAEY AGKICULTURE 



They would have starved if the Indians had not fur- 

 nished them with ,eorn. The Indians taught the 

 white men from Europe how to raise corn and how 

 to make from it dishes fit for a king to eat. 



Indian Farming. The Indian methods of farming 

 were very crude and simple, for they knew very little 

 about tilling the soil. The Indian squaws killed a 

 patch of forest trees by cutting a girdle around each 

 one when the sap was running in the spring. After 

 the trees died and the sunlight shone in, the squaws 

 scratched the grains of seed corn into the ground, 

 with a crooked, sharp stick for a hoe. Here, without 

 the use of plow or harrow, the corn sprang up in the 

 rich earth, and a harvest of yellow ears provided 

 food for winter. 



Where Corn Grows. Since that time corn has 

 been one of the chief crops of the American farmer 

 in most sections, and to-day it is the most important 

 of all. Corn can be raised in nearly every part of 

 North America. In the North, where the summers 

 are short, the farmers have developed a kind that 

 grows only three or four feet high and that will 

 ripen in seventy days. In the Southern countries 

 of Mexico and South America there are kinds of 

 corn that grow more than twenty feet high and 

 require six months in which to ripen. 



The Corn Belt. Corn is now raised in many coun- 

 tries, but about three-fourths of the world's supply 

 is grown in the United States, and nearly one-half 

 of the world's supply in the seven states known as 



