338 BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



becoming loss fertile, and the use of fertilizers, in small amounts at 

 least, is becoming general. On many soils in Massachusetts an aver- 

 age expenditure of about $20 per acre for fertilizers will insure an 

 annual product at the rate of from GO to 70 bushels. This is at the 

 rate of only about $0.30 per bushel for corn produced, but in Massa- 

 chusetts the stover is worth much more as forage than in the States 

 which have just been named. On many Massachusetts farms the 

 value of the stover will equal the total expenditure for fertilizers, so 

 that the corn produced costs the farmer only the amount expended 

 for labor in the production of the crop. The labor cost in this State 

 is often unnecessarily high. It must perhaps always average some- 

 what higher than in the great States of the Mississippi valley, for our 

 farms are rougher and our corn fields average smaller. The price of 

 farm lands, however, in this State is so low that obstructions to the 

 use of more progressive methods may be removed, and the total expendi- 

 ture, including first cost and improvements, will still be lower than the 

 price of good farm land in many of the great States in the corn belt. 

 These improvements being made, the labor cost of producing corn in 

 Massachusetts need not be materially, if at all, greater than in the 

 great corn States. If, then, as can scarcely be doubted, the stover is 

 worth enough in this State to cover the cost of the needed fertilizers, 

 and the labor cost can be kept practically as low as in the great corn 

 States, there would seem to be no reason why Massachusetts should 

 not produce a much larger proportion of the corn used within her 

 borders. It is certain, at least, that our farmers buy too much corn. 



Special Reasons why Corn is a Desirable Crop. 



The fact that our soils and climate are admirably suited for the 

 production of corn is among the reasons why the American farmer can 

 produce food at prices which defy competition. 



Among the various plants which are cultivated by man, the corn 

 plant is in many respects one of the most wonderful. In a very real 

 sense it is a child of the sun. There are indeed varieties which may 

 be cultivated well to the north, but only in localities where the sum- 

 mer, though short, is fervid. The sun is a source of power, and the 

 plant which thrives best under the intense heat of the sun is the plant 

 which, other things being equal, can store up in its tissues or in its 

 seeds the maximum of energy poured out upon its leaves by the sun. 

 Among the different crops which we can cultivate, none equals corn 

 in its capacity for storing up this heat energy. The chemist in com- 

 paring different foods is accustomed to speak of their ultimate food 

 value on the basis of the total amount of heat produced when the food 

 is assimilated and fully oxidized in the body, or burned in apparatus 

 especially designed for the purpose. His unit of measurement is the 



