LUTHER BURBANK 



This is an enormous acreage and a colossal 

 output. Yet it seems almost insignificant in com- 

 parison with the record of corn. For to that crop 

 106,884,000 acres were devoted, and the crop 

 harvested aggregated 3,125,000,000 bushels. 



Nothing that could be added would better show 

 the supremacy of King Corn than this citation of 

 comparative statistics. A crop that tops the three 

 billion bushel mark stands by itself among all the 

 products of the cultivated acres of the world. Not 

 only is it America's greatest crop ; there is no crop 

 of any other cereal or any single vegetable product 

 whatever that equals this record anywhere in the 

 world. 



It is true that the corn crops of other nations 

 are comparatively insignificant in contrast with 

 the crops of small grains. But this is merely 

 because corn demands peculiar conditions, notably 

 a very hot summer, to bring its product to perfec- 

 tion. A goodly quantity of corn is exported; and 

 the beef and pork that corn has produced are sent 

 everywhere. 



THE ANCESTOR OF KING CORN 



Among the most interesting experiments that 

 I have performed in the development of corn, have 

 been those that had to do with the primitive plants 

 that were the progenitors of the present developed 

 product. 



[8] 



