XIV INTRODUCTION 



acre — nearly ten times the average crop of the United 

 States — ^the marvels of the corn plant must be recog- 

 nized. When forty-five crops all over the country 

 average ninety bushels of com per acre, when improve- 

 ment also in the chemical composition of the grain 

 itself is demonstrated, and when the uses of the plant 

 are becoming so manifold, it is full time to grasp what 

 maize may mean to the world in general and to Amer- 

 ica in particular. 



For the United States possesses practically a mo- 

 nopoly of the corn crop. Other countries produce from 

 one-fifth to one-fourth of the world's supply, yet while 

 this foreign production is capable of much expansion, 

 the possibilities of corn culture in the United States 

 are practically unlimited. This is in marked contrast 

 to wheat, the production of which in Canada and 

 Siberia, as well as in other regions, is destined to 

 increase the already keen competition felt by American 

 wheat in the world's market. It is evident, also, that 

 new markets and new uses for the corn crop, both at 

 home and abroad, are likely to keep pace with increased 

 production. The larger exportation of corn from this 

 country to Europe is but a foretaste of what is to come, 

 while the possibilities of the Orient as a market for 

 corn have hardly been touched upon. Of course this 

 crop, both the corn and the fodder, should be very 

 largely sold on the hoof or in the form of butter, milk 

 or cheese, in order to maintain the highest agricultural 

 prosperity. 



The financial importance of corn to national pros- 

 perity is further emphasized by the fact that every cent 

 that can be added to the price of a bushel of corn means 

 an increased profit to the American farmer of twenty- 

 five million dollars annually, a figure that will be 

 doubled, when the United States produces five thousand 



