With Milk and Sugar Blest 207 



the endosperm of the corn, and the large quantity of corn 

 available at low prices, make this grain the chief source of 

 starch in America today. While potatoes run from 18 to 20 

 percent, and wheat from 54 to 48 percent starch, American 

 corn has an average starch content of from 68 to 70 percent. 

 Rice is still starchier, with a 70 to 79 percent content. For 

 several generations the planters in South Carolina and Georgia 

 looked over their rice fields and dreamed of cornering the 

 world's starch market. 



The Union victory in the war between the states decided 

 the battle between the Southern rice-planters and the farmers 

 of the corn belt. It was a victory for zea mays. The abolition 

 of slavery meant ruin for the rice growers; it spelt wealth for 

 the corn-planters in Illinois and Iowa. For what corn the 

 farmer sells for cash goes largely to the refineries to be used 

 as a source for starch. In recent years Europe has taken to 

 making starch from American maize grown in the Balkans and 

 the valley of the Danube. Roumanian maize is towed up the 

 Danube to Bratislava and on to Passau to be poured into 

 refineries in Germany, whence it comes out as starch for high 

 explosives and as valuable sugar. Not only Roumanian oil, 

 but Roumanian maize, figure in der Fiihrer's politics in the 

 Balkans. American corn may possibly play a decisive part in 

 the present European war. 



In the same year that Napoleon conceived the idea of 

 ramming the whole of Louisiana down the American throat 

 which had opened hungrily for New Orleans, he also estab- 

 lished a blockade against British goods. Chiefly, the embargo 

 was directed against sugar. The French loyally gave up me- 

 ringues; and the storehouses in England and in the British 

 sugar islands overflowed with sweetness for which there was 

 no immediate market. The embargo spurred French chemists 

 to seek a cane sugar substitute. One of them came to the 

 emperor with information that he had discovered that a sugary 

 substance could be extracted from the juice of grapes. Imme- 



