204 HOW TO GROW GOOD CORN. 



with the corn and consumed by the public. This is not only a dis- 

 agreeable fact, but it may be the source of very serious consequences, 

 for I think it not improbable that many diseases might be traced to 

 the insects which are converted with the infested flour into bread, 

 amounting to such a large percentage, that if they have the slightest 

 medicinal or deleterious qualities, it is impossible to deny the in- 

 fluence they must exercise upon the human system. I have known 

 bushels of cocoa-nuts, which were every one worm-eaten and full of 

 maggots, with their webs, excrement, cast-off skins, pupse, and co- 

 coons, all ground down to make chocolate, flavoured, I suppose, with 

 vanilla ! 



CHAPTER XXX. 



SCIENCE IN THE CULTIVATION OF CORN. 



The object of the present chapter will be to point 

 out the principles concerned in the more immediate 

 acts connected with the cultivation of corn. In so 

 doing in the present case, as in the discussion of 

 the preceding subjects, it may not be out of place 

 here to state that it has not, nor will it be, our 

 object to enter into the every-day practical details 

 of crop-management, but to dwell more particu- 

 larly upon those points in cultivation which may be 

 said to belong more especially to the science of the 

 subject. 



This chapter, then, will be more especially 

 devoted to the consideration of the three following 

 subjects : — 



