538 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE, 



also grind the cob and say it has a vahie — that it is worth five or six cents a bushel; others 

 Bay it is of no vahie. It is a shame that neither the cob, husks, blades or stalk have been 

 analyzed ; all should be tested to see if there is any nutritive matter in either, and what 

 per cent. The ashes, also, should be analyzed to sec the kind of salts taken from the earth 

 in raising corn, so that the proper manure can be supplied to raise the largest quantity per 

 acre. 1 wish you could ]>ersuade Mr. Tescheniacher to undertake this investigation.* I 

 know of none connected with Agriculture of more interest. lSu])pose that the cob, ibr nu- 

 tritive value, is worth but two cents per bushel, we can save ten millions of doUai's per year." 



When it is considered that Indian corn constitutes one of our most important 

 staples, that it is produced in a single State to the value of more than 

 $11,000,000, and that it is cultivated more or less over the whole extent of the 

 United States, it will be admitted that every new question that can be raised about 

 it ought to command attention. Hence we heartily agree with our respected cor- 

 respondent, that the interests of American Agriculture demand that every part 

 of this noble plant, which should emblazon our national arms rather than the 

 bird of prey I should be thoroughly analyzed in all its parts, aad the results 

 presented in every aspect that may serve to illustrate its value. We will ven- 

 ture to say that any plant occupying in Europe, as maize does in America, the 

 front rank in the catalogue of vegetable diet for man and beast would have been 

 long since subjected to all the tests that vegetable chemistry could apply. Thus 

 we should have learned, with as much exactness as science could determine, the 

 sort of manures most congenial to its growth ; how much, for example, of pot- 

 ash, lime, magnesia, phosphates, silica, &c., a crop of any given number of 

 bushels carries off from an acre of land, and how much of these are appropriated 

 respectively to the different parts of the plant — its leaves, grain, husk, cob, &c. — • 

 and, finally, how much there is of nutriment for man or beast ia a given quantity 

 of all these parts. The question now raised is as to the value of the cob ; a 

 question of palpable importance when we consider that they will amount this 

 year, probably, as stated by our correspondent, to 500,000,000 of bushels, unless 

 it be that the crop may be greatly diminished, as in the year 1816, by the very 

 cold weather of the spring so far — for it is knoAvn to be a plant that, of all others, 

 delights in heat and moisture. 



But there are other points in the physiology and value of this grain, besides 

 the virtue of the cob, that require to be elucidated ; and here Ave may be allowed 

 once again to remark on the slow progress of Agriculture as compared with other 

 manufactures, for it is in reality a manufacture of food out of raw materials, 

 worked and manipulated by hand and animal and other powers. See in the 

 meantime what improvements have been made in glass, iron, paper, in printing, 

 and, in short, in all other arts and manufactures ! In studying the causes of 

 this difference, the history of Agriculture as well as of these other arts and man- 

 ufactures, points to our neglect, in all our schools, of chemistry and of mechan- 

 ical philosophy in their obvious relations to Agriculture. May we hope that a 

 " better time is coming ?" But to return. 



AVhat we want in reference to Indian corn, over and above an exact knowledge 

 of the constituents and nutritive value o{ the cob, is to have, as before said, all its 

 parts analyzed — and the blades, both in their green and in their cured state. It 

 is too much to be desired that we should know the weight that each part of the 

 plant will yield on an acre, in proportion to any given measure or weight of grain. 

 How else can the farmer tell the quantity of nutritive matter, and hence the val- 

 ue of the product of his labor and capital when applied to corn, in comparison 

 Avith other crops ? By the analysis made by Societies and other Institutes, and 

 by scientific and public spirited men in Europe, especially by order of the Duke 



(1108, 



