172 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XXII. No. 556 



Experiment has proved that a yield of fifteen tons per 

 acre of trimmed cane from the large southern corn is, un- 

 der these circumstances, an average result, f 



The use of bone phosphate, and especially nitrate of 

 potash, applied in the hill as fertilizers, is strongly to be 

 recommended. Also, the best labor-saving implements 

 should be employed in the cultivation of the crop. These 

 have so far proved their value as to have reduced the 

 cost of corn-growing within the past twenty years by 

 about fifty per cent. 



The ear should be allowed to develop until the grain 

 has reached the "milky" stage, but never in the least be- 

 yond it, and when field corn is grown, first the ears in the 

 husk, and subsequently when the stalk is cut, the tops, 

 leaves and other offal should be passed through an en- 

 silage cutter and treated precisely as ordinary ensilage. 

 Or, when special facilities have been provided for it, the 

 grain on the cob, with the husk removed or not, may be 

 kept apart by itself, and after being coarsely crushed, or 

 cut into small pieces, may be fed in that condition or 

 dried and ground as feed for stock. In this form it is 

 much superior for cattle food to the ordinary corn and 

 cob meal. 



To facilitate the removal of the ears the corn field, 

 when planted, may be laid out in lands or sections of 

 about eight rows in each, with an interval of about five 

 feet between the outside rows of adjoining sections, so as 

 to admit of the passage of a short-axled cart drawn by a 

 single horse or two in tandem to carry off the grain. This 

 will be done, and the ears in the husk properly cut and 

 stored in the silo, or dried and ground, before the sugar 

 season has properly begun. 



At this time it is important that every vestige of an ear 

 should be removed from the stalk; and, thenceforward 

 until they are cut to avoid injury from frost, every day 

 adds to the accumulation of sugar in the cells of the 

 standing canes. But in climates where the growing sea- 

 son is short, or, as sometimes occurs further south, un- 

 usual cold sets in early in the fall, it is better to avoid the 

 risk of injury to the crop by harvesting it about two 

 weeks after the removal of the ears, when the juice will 

 have attained a density of about 8° Beaume, containing 

 about thirteen per cent of cane sugar. 



f Trustworthy evidence that this yield of corn cane per acre from 

 the large-stemmed sorts is below the average is furnished in the 

 reports from the different State Agricultural Experiment stations 

 of the yield for ensilage when accurately weighed. Up to the 

 period at which it is usually cut for that purpose, the conditions of 

 growth are essentially the same as when sugar-growing is the 

 ultimate object. 



At that stage an average of about twenty-five per cent must be 

 deducted from the gross weight of green ensilage for the weight 

 of the immature ears, blades and tips. The remainder is to be 

 estimated as trimmed cane. 



Some examples are given below of the yield in districts well 

 known to be less favorable for the growth of the large, late sorts 

 than the more central parts of the corn belt. 



Yield per acre : 



43,700 lbs. (21.85 tons) southern "Ensilage" corn, 42,060 lbs. 

 (21 tons) southern "Horse Tooth." — Prof. W. A. Henry, Wiscon- 

 sin Ex. Sta. Report, 1891. 



50-60 tons "Southern Fodder Corn," 32 tons "Mammoth," 30 

 tons "Southern Horse Tooth," Native Yellow Flint, only 15-20 

 tons. — New Jersey State Expt. Sta. Rep., 1881. 



27.37 tons "Orange Flint."— N. Y. Ex. St. Rep., 1885. 



40 tons "Southern" corn and "Blount's Prolific." — J. J. H. Greg- 

 ory, Marblehead, Mass. 



29 tons "Southern" corn. — T. S. Peer, Palmyra, N. Y. 



30 " " " J- J- Chaffie, Passaic, N. Y. 



27.5 tons "Blount's' Prolific." — F. E. Loud, Weymouth, Mass. 



46 tons or 600 tons on 13 acres. — Clark W. Mills, Pompton, 

 N.J. 



50 tons "Kentucky White." — Geo. L. Clemence, Southbridge, 

 Mass. ; quot. H. J. Stevens on ensilage. 



25 tons per acre on 15 acres. — F. R. Coit, Mantua Sta., O. 



20 to 25 tons "Penna. Dent."— Ralston Bros., Elderton, Pa. 



If properly stored so as to be screened from the sun 

 and rain in a cool place, the canes can be worked up with- 

 in aboiit ten days after cutting without appreciable loss. 

 But if warm weather j)revails, the interval should be as 

 short as possible between the time of cutting and work- 

 ing up. 



The internal structure of the corn stem is peculiar, so 

 much so as to make the extraction of the juice from the 

 canes by the ordinary sugar mill practically impossible. 

 These structural peculiarities, as disclosed by the micro- 

 scope and as evidenced by numerous practical tests for the 

 extraction of the juice, make it plain that other means 

 must be resorted to than pressure between revolving rolls 

 to extract the cell sap. 



Corn cane yields to pressure much more readily than 

 the sugar cane or sorghum, but the elasticity of its tissues 

 is such and the recovery so sudden after passing the line 

 of pressure that fully one-half of the expressed juice is 

 mopped up before it can leave the roll or the guide plate 

 and is re-absorbed. 



No other plant is capable of being exhausted of 

 its cell contents more rapidly or thoroughly by diffusion; 

 but the expense of that process is very considerable and 

 its inconvenience very great. It was seen that the econ- 

 omy and efficiency of any system of sugar making from 

 this j)lant must depend largely upon the construction of 

 a machine which would separate the juice expeditiously 

 and without waste. It was at last found that a sufficient- 

 ly simple apparatus could be constructed by which the 

 benefits of both milling and diffusion could be secured 

 without any of the prominent defects of either system 

 when separate. Special mention is made here of these 

 facts for the reason that the only practical difficulty pecu- 

 liar to this plant, in the extraction of its sugar, is thus 

 easily overcome. 



Sugar making from this or any other plant is both a 

 science and an art, and the general princij^les upon which 

 it dej)ends are now well understood. The comj)osition of 

 the juice of corn cane is somewhat peculiar,! ^"'^^ ^^^ suffi- 

 ciently so as to require any considerable deviation from 

 the best systems of sugar manufacture nov/ in vogue for 

 the treatment of the raw juice of the tropical cane. 



I conclude this sketch with a brief summary of the re- 

 sults reached, leaving the intelligent reader to draw his 

 own conclusions. But it must be said, that if we would 

 now reach any just estimate of the saccharine value of 

 maize, in this new role, we must remember that all pre- 

 vious attemjDts to determine it were made without any 

 knowledge of the important physiological princijole upon 

 which that value solely depends and which this investiga- 

 tion has now disclosed. 



From a system of treatment which takes advantage of 

 this in a practical way it follows : 



1. That the highest normal of sucrose or true cane 

 sugar in the juice, seven to eight per cent, is raised to 

 thirteen to sixteen per cent, or almost doubled. 



2. This is accomplished by a true juice-ripening process, 

 analogous in all respects to that which marks the matur- 

 ing sugar cane. It is natural to the plant under the 

 changed conditions and is constant in all varieties of the 

 species. 



3. Its rank as a sugar-producing plant, under these 

 circumstances, having thus been accurately determined, 

 and a wide range of experiments undertaken to test the 

 practicability of sugar extraction having proved that no 

 hindrances thereto exist that are at all comparable to 

 those met with in the case either of the sugar beet or of 



JCorn cane juice contains an organic acid previously detected 

 only in corn silk (maizenic acid). A peculiar protein body Zein 

 long ago found in the grain, is also found in the juice, together 

 with several others not thoroughly investigated. 



