i 9 4 PLANT AND ORGANIC CHEMISTRY 



per cent, of all the land and cereals, and the product about 

 9.2 bushels per head of total population. . . . 



"There is but little wheat land east of the Hudson River, 

 and although New York and Pennsylvania produce consider- 

 able wheat, the great bulk of the wheat country lies west of 

 those states, beyond the seventy-seventh meridian and the 

 Appalachian chain of mountains, and north of the Ohio 

 River. . . . 



"The successful cultivation of wheat, in a commercial sense, 

 is determined by a complicated set of conditions." In an agri- 

 cultural sense, "the yield and quality of the crop practically 

 depend upon but five conditions, the climate, the soil, 

 the variety cultivated, the mode of cultivation, and the lia- 

 bility to destruction by insects." Chemistry has to do, how- 

 ever, with only the soil and the variety of grain related. The 

 chemical composition of the grain and its value as a bread 

 plant not only vary greatly in the different varieties, but also 

 in the same variety, from year to year, and on different soils. 



Indian corn x stands first in amount of the cereal productions 

 of the country. This cereal is more generally distributed 

 over the country than any other; the place of its greatest pro- 

 duction is on the fertile prairies and river bottoms of the West, 

 and north of the thirty-sixth parallel of latitude. A compara- 

 tively few states 2 produce the bulk of the crop, the four states 

 of Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, and Indiana producing upward of 

 fifty-two per cent. 



"The chemical composition 3 of Indian corn varies more 

 than wheat, as might be expected from the vast number and 

 great difference of its varieties. As a whole, it is not quite so 

 rich in albuminoids." It varies also much more in the amount 

 of fibre. The average proportion of starch is less than in wheat, 

 but the most noticeable difference is in the amount of oil. 

 Indian corn when in the "milk" is a most nutritious and 

 excellent food. "The chemical analysis of green corn shows 

 respectively fourteen to fifteen per cent, albuminoids, ... an 

 amount equal to that in the very best wheat flour." 4 



1 Cereal Report, p. 470. 2 Ibid., p. 471. 



3 Ibid., p. 482. * Ibid., p. 484. 



