BREEDING NEW GRAINS 



able for strengthening food, the protein, as it is 

 called, which is the muscle-building material 

 of all food, has also been increased at will, and, 

 where it could make way for some other ele- 

 ment suitable for some other purpose, it has 

 been decreased. All this has been accom- 

 plished by selective breeding. Corn has been 

 produced having sixteen and eleven hundredths 

 per cent of protein, — a remarkably large 

 amount, — while the protein has been reduced 

 to six and sixty-six hundredths per cent, a dif- 

 ference in protein of nearly ten per cent. Com 

 is also bred for a large amount of starch and 

 similarly successful results follow. The corn 

 in the hands of the scientific man becomes a 

 miracle plant. 



Along with these changes to suit the de- 

 mands of man has come a large increase in 

 the yield of the corn. It is likely that this 

 increase will be fully ten bushels per acre, — an 

 increase which would add to the national 

 wealth more than four hundred millions of 

 dollars per year. 



Perhaps in no department of the New Earth 

 have the practical and the theoretical been so 

 intimately interwoven as in the production of 



63 



