164 THE BOOK OF CORN 



The corn is kept in these cribs until ready for use or 

 for sale. If sold it may be hauled to the elevator in 

 the ear, or, what is much better, is shelled at home 

 where the cobs can be used as firewood and the grain 

 more easily taken to market. 



SHRINKAGE OF EAR CORN 



The time to sell depends somewhat upon the 

 amount of shrinkage from the time the com is husked 

 until it is sent to the elevator. This matter of shrink- 

 age is not well understood, and varies greatly with the 

 season, the character of the crop, the character of the 

 crib in which it is stored, etc. A number of tests have 

 been made by farmers and by experiment stations. 

 At the Michigan experiment station in 1896 corn was 

 husked October 3 to 5. By the middle of February the 

 shrinkage amounted to thirty per cent. This was, of 

 course, an extreme case. In another test at the same 

 station corn was husked October 2i and shrank eleven 

 per cent by January 31, while well-cured corn in Van 

 Buren county, Michigan, shrank only three per cent 

 from the time of husking until January 7. At the Iowa 

 experiment station corn was placed in a crib set on 

 scales and the decrease noted from month to month; 

 this test was continued for three years. The first year 

 the shrinkage was twenty per cent, the second year a 

 shrinkage of only nine per cent was noted, and the 

 third year fifteen and eight-tenths per cent. The aver- 

 age about fifteen per cent. At the Illinois experiment 

 station one thousand bushels of com lost eleven and 

 one-half per cent from the time it was cut until it was 

 thoroughly air dried. This is the result of a three 

 years' test. A Tippecanoe county (Ohio) farmer placed 

 nineteen thousand seven hundred and one pounds of 

 white corn in a crib December 15, 1894. By August 

 16, 1895, it lost fifteen and one-half per cent. 



