CORN. 



Ji/f EXPOSITION OF K-^^SJiS* GREATEST 



CEREAL. 



Source of Much IVealth—Its IVidespread 



Cultivation and Close Relation 



to Prosperity. 



Corn is the king of cultivated plants in Kan- 

 sas. Grown in profuse luxuriance, this grain 

 proclaims itself the source of wealth and herald 

 of opulence. It is at once the farmer's friend 

 and handmaiden of the stockman's prosperity. 

 Corn proves itself a source of greater wealth and 

 profit in Kansas than any other cultivated grain, 

 and in years of specially favoring conditions its 

 value has often equaled the combined values of 

 all other farm crops. Justly famed as many of 

 the State's wheat crops have been, statistics 

 reveal that in the past quarter of a century the 

 aggregate value of the corn crop has been nearly 

 double that of the combined crops of winter and 

 spring wheat, and further, that in but few years 

 of the State's history has the value of the wheat 

 crop approached in magnitude or surpassed that 

 of the same year's corn. Great as have been 

 the yields of corn in former years, the most en- 

 thusiastic and insistent believer in Kansas re- 

 sources will not maintain that all portions of the 

 State are well adapted to its successful produc- 

 tion. The corn crops of the past thirty years 

 have been grown mainly in the eastern half of 

 the State, and no one pretends that the western 

 third of the State is especially or reliably corn- 

 growing territory. 



The corn crop for the season of 1899 was 

 225,183,432 bushels, valued on the farms where 

 grown at ^53,530.576, wliile the no mean wheat 

 crop for the same year was valued at $22,406,410, 

 or considerably less than half as much. As in- 

 dicative of what the corn-producer has been 

 doing of recent years, figures of yield and value 

 for the past decade are given herewith. The 

 yield of 1899 was larger than any other annual 

 yield in the ten-year period named and the value 

 wa*^ likewise greater. 



