THE GENESEE FARMER, 



45 



selling or keeping any staple, is a matter with 

 which its exportation has nothing to do. It is the 

 business of the purchaser of corn for foreign eon- 

 sumption to see that it is sufficiently dry to keep 

 sound during a sea voyage, and is properly pro- 

 tected from dampness in its passage from one place 

 to anoth-er. Neglect in these two particulars causes 

 all the injury that corn, or corn meal, ever sustains 

 in its shipment to foreign countries. The fault is 

 in commercial men who do not understand their 

 business, not in farmers, who generally sell their 

 grain in a sound condition. 



I repeat, it is not enough to dry corn meal or 

 corn perfectly, and then expose it to all the changes 

 of atmospheric humidity again, to have it keep 

 well in a common granary at home, and much less 

 in a hot ship's hold. If any corn-dealer doubts our 

 knowledge on this point, let him dry in a kiln or 

 otherwise 1,000 bushels of this grain as much as he 

 pleases short of charring it, and then put it up in a 

 square bin as deep as it is long and wide, and he 

 will find that his shelled corn wiU imbibe both 

 moisture and oxygen enough to heat and spoil be- 

 fore the solar heat of one summer is past. Masses 

 of corn have to be often turned over to cool, in o«r 

 climate; and I am surprised that a paper so old 

 and well-informed as the London MarJc Lane Ex- 

 pi-ess should not know that dampness can not be 

 kept out of maize and its meal unless confined in 

 tight barrels and impervious bags, 'after it has been 

 thoroughly dried. Is it unreasonable to say and 

 believe, that the same damp atmosphere which 

 makes a large bin of corn moist, and heat, before it 

 is stove-dried, will restore moisture to this porous 

 grain, after it has been dried once, or ten times, if 

 exposed to the same atmosphere in which it before 

 existed ? A thousand times has direct experiment 

 proved that to expel moisture from wood or grain 

 is not to prevent water from reentering into their 

 pores again, when subjected to its influence. Prop- 

 erly dried, and hermetically sealed, grain will keep 

 without change in any climate for indefinite ages. 

 tu such a condition, both water and oxygen are 

 wholly excluded. 



As hay as well as grain often gets musty and 

 damaged, I will venture to sta^ie briefly the science 

 of the natural phenomenon. 



In cold weather, damp corn or hay never be- 

 comes musty, simply because mould, or the para- 

 sitic plants that form the dust and must and rust 

 peculiar to gramineous and cereal grasses and their 

 seeds, do not vegetate, unless artificial heat (so to 

 speak) is generated by chemical action, as is seen in 

 all fermentation. The heat of a fermenting mass 

 of horse-dung will grow a large crop of many cryp- 

 togamic plants in winter, as may now be seen at 

 my stables. But what causes this heat in ferment- 

 ing manure ? What is the fermentation of a mow 

 of damp hay, or of damp corn ? It is an act of 

 spontaneous eombustion, in which oxygen com- 

 bines chemically with carbon, giving rise to car- 

 bonic acid, as is seen in beer tubs, and rendering 

 heat that was before insensible or latent, sensible 

 and active as a chemical agent. Without that free- 

 dom of motion in the particles of an organized body 

 that moisture confers, this spontaneous combustion 

 will not take place ; and, therefore, no fermenta- 

 tion or injury is witnessed. 



Like smut in. the heads of wheat, on ears of corn 



and their stalks, rust, mildew, and other fungi, the 

 dust in hay, and must in grain, meal, or flour, are 

 only a little less poisonous than ergot in rye, known 

 as " horned rye." Eence, to put up new hay in a 

 barn or stack so damp from its natural juices, or 

 rain or dew, as to boat and sweat, is to form a hot- 

 bed for the growth Of a crop of poisonous plants at 

 the expense of nutritive substances in the stems 

 and leaves of half-cured grasses. Does the rust on 

 ripening wheat rob the young seeds of their nutri- 

 ment ? Every adult reader knows that the harvest 

 is' often wholly blighted by this parasite, which ap- 

 propriates to itself the organized elements that 

 otherwise would form grain. In the same way, 

 damp hay and grain in a barn may be devoured 

 by millions of microscopic plants so far ss to dimin- 

 ish their value one-half or more. 



Warmth and humidity generated as I have en- 

 deavored to explain, are the forces which most 

 favor the growth of mold, mildew, and of all cellu- 

 lar plants of a similar character. It Should be re- 

 marked that in all vegetable combustion or fer- 

 mentation, water is one of the products; so that 

 there is a seilf-sustaining humidity present in spoil- 

 ing hay, grain, or meat, After chemical action has 

 once commenced. But keep all moisture away 

 from well-dTied meat, fruit, hay, grain, meal, and 

 flour, and they will never Je^iw to stpoil. Apiece 

 of soft wood, like old field pine or basswood, will 

 rot in two years if placed on the ground out in the 

 air, dew, and rain. If kept dry in a well-ventilated 

 house, wood of the same kind will remain sound 

 for several centuries. 



There is nothing new in these remarks; and I 

 hardly feel justified in alluding, in this connection, 

 to my humble efforts twenty years ago, when con- 

 nected with the press in Buffalo, to improve the 

 commerce of the lakes and the revenue of the Erie 

 cana), by extending be^th the inland and foreign 

 trade in IJndian corn. At that time, the tolls on 

 corn and corn meal amounted to nearly a prohibi- 

 tion. They were much reduced when the writer 

 represented the city of Buffalo in the Assembly, 

 and just before the famine in Ireland greatly favored 

 the exportation of cheap breadstuff's. Had those 

 who grow corn to the best advantage been as zeal- 

 ous to advance their interests, both at home and 

 abroad, as the cotton-growers have been, their an- 

 nual exiport of corn would now exceed in value 

 that of American cotton. But corn-growers have 

 thought it wise to turn their backs toward their 

 earliest and most sincere friends. I was present in 

 the United States Senate when the small appropri- 

 ation of $500 per annum to pay Dr. Lewis C. Beok 

 for making researches in relation to the preserva- 

 tion of breadstuff's, as published in the Patent Office 

 Reports for 1848 and 1849, was voted down. Dr. 

 Beok was a man of true science, and no politician ; 

 therefore congressmen had no use for his services. 



I might quote fi'om his analyses, and those of 

 other chemists, to show that the Marie Lane Ex- 

 press over estimates the quantity of gluten and oil 

 in corn, but it is hardly worth while for any prac- 

 tical purpose. Corn is not better than wheat for 

 making bread ; although I regard it as more healthy 

 to eat some corn bread every day, particularly at 

 the South, than all wheat bread. But as a matter 

 of economy, corn meal is far better than flour " for 

 the million." 



