XXII 



Tomorrow 's Harvest 



IF YOU plant one acre of good cornland with hybrid corn, 

 with any luck in the world you may expect to gather a 

 harvest of sixty bushels. This, at the present market price for 

 corn, is worth approximately $36. 



But there are any number of other ways of valuing a bushel 

 of shelled corn than in dollars and cents. For instance, it is 

 worth any one of the following: 



43 Ibs. corn meal 



5 gals, corn liquor 



10 Ibs. pork 



30 Ibs. starch 



40 Ibs. corn syrup 



1^2 Ibs. com oil 



25 Ibs. dextrose 



Moreover, the cobs from which the corn has been shelled 

 have a value to the smokers of corncob pipes. In south central 

 Missouri the farmers grow a large-eared variety of corn, the 

 cobs of which are worth as much as ordinary corn brings on 

 the ear. The Missouri corncob pipe industry amounts annually 

 to some $500,000. 



Corn silk, out of which generations of American youth have 

 surreptitiously rolled their first cigarettes to puff them valiantly 

 behind the barn (there were only the cows to see how sick 

 you were) is used in filters. The pith of the cornstalks packs 

 the coffer-dams of our battleships. Americans have been born 

 and have died on corn-husk mattresses. Many a Negro and 

 "poor white" child has loved a corn-husk doll. Those children 



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