164 DESCRIPTION OF FEEDING STUFFS 
sidered in the order of their importance for this purpose, followed 
by the minor grains, leguminous seeds, and oil-bearing seeds. 
Indian corn (maize, Zea mays) is the most important cereal 
crop in our country. In 1909 the area in corn made up more than 
one-half of the entire acreage devoted to grain raising; wheat com- 
ing second, with 28 per cent of the total acreage, and oats third 
(20 per cent of the total acreage). Corn was grown on 82 out of 
every 100 American farms, according to the United States census 
of that year. While Indian corn may be grown successfully in 
every State in the Union, it thrives best and reaches its greatest 
importance as a cereal and a forage plant in the vast interior of our 
continent, lying between the large eastern and western mountain 
ranges, especially in the prairie States in or near the Mississippi 
valley. The latter are generally spoken of as the “Corn belt.” 
The most important corn-producing States, according to the census 
of 1909, were: 
Illinois (with a production of 390,000,000 bushels), Iowa 
(342,000,000), Indiana (195,000,000), Missouri (191,000,000), 
Nebraska, Ohio, and Kansas following in the order given, each with 
yields of over 150,000,000 bushels of corn. The entire corn crop 
for the whole United States for the year given aggregated nearly 
a billion and a half dollars in value. 
. Corn is the most variable of all cereals, both as regards the size 
to which it grows and the form of the kernel of the different varie- 
ties. “In the South the tropical corn stems, four or five months 
from planting, carry great ears burdened with grain so high that. 
a man can only touch them by reaching high above his head. At 
the other extreme, the Mandan Indian in the country of the Red 
River of the North ‘developed a race of corn which reached only to 
the shoulders of the squaw, with tiny ears borne scarcely a foot from 
the ground on pigmy stalks.” (Henry.) 
There are six different races of Indian corn, but only three 
of these are of importance for feeding farm animals, viz., dent, 
flint, and sweet corn. The average composition of these races is as 
follows: 
Average Chemical Composition of Indian Corn, in Per Cent 
Crud 7 Nitrogen- 
Ash eaten Fiber ‘ bcd Fat 
Dent com.............. 15 10.3 22 70.4 5.0 
Flint corn...... “inole reds 14 10.5 17 70.1 5.0 
Sweet corn............ oe 1.9 11.6 2.8 66.8 8.1 
