I. 



IMPORTANCE AND HISTORY s / 



wheat, $16-26 (£3 7s. 9<±) and maize, $5072 (£5 1 is. 4 d.) chap. 

 per acre. 



4. Amount and Value of the United States Crop. Thie 



total production for all the North American States (not in- 

 cluding Canada and Mexico) amounts to 2,927,416,000 (two 

 billion, nine hundred and twenty-seven million) bushels, Bind 

 the farm value, at a shade above 6s. 6d. per muid, is c/ver 

 £267,000,000. About g&! s per cent of this immense cro/p is 

 wanted for domestic consumption and only the surplus li'; per 

 cent is exported ; U per cent of such a crop is no small quantity, 

 however, for it amounts to over 12,000,000 (twelve million) 

 muids. ' 



The acre value of the maize crop in the United /States 

 varied in one year from 18s. 8d. on the poorer soils of ' South 

 Carolina, to £4 9s. 4d. in Rhode Island, where more intensive 

 agriculture is practised, and from £1 13s. 4d. to £2 10s. in 

 the Corn-belt, and that was a year when the farm /price of 

 maize was only 357 cents per bushel (5s. 3d. per mui/d). 



5. American Maize is not Grown for Export. — Bjy far the 

 largest part of the maize corn produced in the /Corn-belt 

 never leaves the farm on which it is grown, except i/i the form 

 of a second product. Nearly every maize-growfer finds it 

 more profitable to turn the major part of his cro/p into beef 

 or pork before it is sold. It is customary to bu/y up three- 

 year-old steers, or flocks of sheep, raised on t.he Western 

 stock ranges, to fatten on maize corn and stover through the 

 winter; in the spring they are "finished off" o/n maize corn 

 and green pasturage, and are ready for sale >on the stock 

 markets of Chicago and other Western cities, in June and 

 July. Hogs are raised on the spare milk of the farm, and when 

 older are allowed to follow the steers and pitck out the un- 

 digested grain from the droppings, and are 'finally fattened 

 off on maize and sent to market. A certain an/iount of the corn 

 is eaten green as a boiled vegetable ; some is ground into 

 "corn-meal " for domestic use ; only a small a/mount of grain is 

 left to sell for manufacture or export. It h/as been well said 

 that maize is and always will be the King /of Crops, and the 

 greatest of all cattle feeds. / 



6. Maize is a White Mans Crop. — Maize is essentially 

 a white man's crop, and Prof. Carver (1) doubts whether it 



