FROM GRAIN TO EAR. 75 



pollen of their own tassels, thus probably adding to the 

 ' prepotency ' of the established tendency." 



The large amonnt of information gathered by general 

 experience and worked out by Held experiments, teaches some 

 important lessons as to the best conditions for the growth of 

 €orn. This cereal, though semi-tropical in its nature, readily 

 adapts itself to the varying conditions of climate, and quickly 

 makes a home amono- unconofcnial elements. "Indeed, the 

 important destiny for which this grain seems designed by 

 the Creator is in nothing more apparent than in the exten- 

 sive area which it covers, and the variety of climes in which 

 it thrives. Though cultivated quite extensively, and with 

 considerable success in Southern Europe, as well as in por- 

 tions of Asia and Africa, yet America seems to bo its 

 peculiar home, and the region of its highest perfection. 

 From Maine to Oregon, from British America almost to the 

 verge of Patagonia, this legacy of the red man to the white, 

 in some of its forms or varieties, is annually cultivated. 

 Where frost-bound Minnesota lends to its growth a short and 

 reluctant summer, where the rigor of a Canadian climate 

 concedes to it a few weeks of glowing sun, or where the 

 fervid sky of Kansas, or the sultrj^ air and longer season 

 of either Carolina, produce an earlier development and a 

 larger growth ; in short, wherever on this continent civilized 

 man can exist with tolerable comfort, there you will find 

 Indian corn pushing its little cylinder of folded leaves 

 throno-h the soil, or unfurlins; to the wind its long and 

 graceful foliage, or lifting its newly-formed tassel to greet 

 the rising sun," England would gladly give a thousand for- 

 tunes if she could successfully compete with us in the growth 

 of this royal plant. 



Although corn will grow on nearly every kind of soil, it is 

 none the less sensitive to good conditions and responds 

 freely to the highest kinds of culture. A good corn-ground 

 is one that is rich, warm, deep and mellow. It is evident 

 that the maize-plant needs an abundance of the necessary 

 food in the soil, and it must be in an available form. The 

 season oi" i-ai)id growth is very short and there is no time to 

 lose in waiting for the plant-food to be made soluble by 

 iiny slow processes of chemical action. No previous crop of 



