l6o PASTORAL AND AGRICULTURAL BOTANY 



Soils. The best corn soils are well drained, deep, warm, black loams, 

 with a high per cent, of organic matter and available nitrogen. Varieties 

 are known which mature in 80 days, where the summer temperature is 

 over 65. Even these requirements nowhere permit it to mature beyond 

 5oN. though it is grown for fodder in southern England and in Quebec. 

 At least 20 inches of rainfall seem necessary for the best growth of the 

 corn plant. 



Maize is the principal food supply of the American people. The orig- 

 inal distribution of the plant is shown in the map (Fig. 69). Outside of 

 the south very little corn is consumed as a human food for most of the corn 

 is fed to cattle or hogs and consumed as meat. The maize grown in the 

 South is practically all of it consumed at home, being turned into hog flesh, 

 hoecake and hominy. While corn meal hominy and similar products 

 are the principal corn foods, there are a number of others such as the un- 

 ripe ears, especially of sweet varieties and pop corn which are used as 

 favorite American foods. Starch, glucose, gluten, oil and corn flakes are 

 also made from corn. 



Cultivation. Maize is of the utmost importance from an agricultural 

 viewpoint and it has been, studied as no other cereal in America with re- 

 gard to methods of cultivation, improvement of .varieties, composition, 

 position in the rotation and as a food for man and the domestic animals. 

 The important food materials found in corn and its products are: (i) 

 Protein, or nitrogenous, flesh-forming material; (2) Fat; (3) Carbohydrates, 

 or heat-producing elements, such as, starches, sugars, cellulose, or crude 

 fiber; (4) Mineral matter and ash. The food value of the grain of maize 

 lies in its high net available energy due to the presence of carbohydrates 

 and fats. The plant whether green, ensiled, or dry is a good food for horses 

 and ruminants, the dry matter being more digestible than that of clover 

 hay, or timothy hay. When properly prepared the food value of the dry 

 matter is rather less, and when the grain is added, rather more than that 

 of timothy hay. The digestible nutrients in the grain and clover are about 

 as two to one. The nutrient ratio of maize is 1 17.5 and its nutritive value 

 is 87. This ratio indicates that maize is poor in protein substances at the 

 best. This rather unfits it for a standard article of food, unless combined 

 with other substances richer in protein. 



Sowing. The North American Indians believed that the time to plant 

 corn had arrived when the young leaves of the white oak in the spring 

 had reached the size of squirrel ears. This period is reached in Pennsyl- 



