INDIAN CORN OR MAIZE. 21 



varieties. They will virtually consume the entire 

 product when it is fed to them prior to the maturing 

 of the crop. 



Corn grown as soiling food will yield from 

 ten to thirty tons per acre, according as the land is 

 poor or rich and the season is dry or moist. A good 

 average crop may be placed at fifteen to twenty tons 

 per acre. 



Distribution. — Corn can be grown as soiling 

 food in nearly all the tillable portions of the United 

 States, since, with a mean temperature of about 60 

 degrees, it will become sufficiently advanced for being 

 cut as soiling food in from fifty to seventy days from 

 the time of planting. But where it can be allowed 

 to grow for a longer period, the crop is relatively 

 more valuable. Nearly all the tillable portions of 

 the United States have marked adaptation for grow- 

 ing corn to be fed in the green form. The sections 

 least well adapted to its growth are those probably 

 which border on the Pacific ocean, between Alaska 

 and California, because of the low mean tempera- 

 tures that prevail there. In nearly all the tillable 

 areas of Canada, also, corn can be grown in the 

 finest form for summer feeding and in sections too 

 far north to mature the grain. 



Soil. — Corn is specially adapted to warm, deep 

 loam soils rich in humus, and that lie upon subsoils 

 of what may be termed porous clay. It is a most 

 voracious feeder on decaying organic matter, hence 

 when it is to be grown, care should be taken to keep 

 the soil well supplied with such food. But it may be 

 grown with more or less success on almost any kind 

 of land not too low in available plant food, not too 



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