APPENDIX 349 



Antrrtaut AgrtntlturtHt Corn (Htmttet 



Many growers all over the United States competed in 

 1889 for prizes offered by the American Agriculturist (pub- 

 lished by Orange Judd Company, New York) for the largest 

 yield of corn on one measured acre — forty-three thousand 

 five hundred and sixty square feet. The rules (as worked 

 out by Herbert Myrick) were simple, uniform, and were 

 rigidly adhered to, including surveying of land, witnessing 

 harvest, weighing crop, etc. There was no room for error 

 or fraud, the results were never questioned, and are accepted 

 as a scientific demonstration of the possibilities of maize 

 culture. 



Thanks to the co-operation of the respective state 

 agricultural experiment stations (except that the -Iowa crops 

 were analyzed by the United States department of agricul- 

 ture), we are able to give, for the first time in the history 

 of this crop, a concise statement not only of the yield of ear 

 corn, kernels and cobs, with the percentage of each, but also 

 the percentage of water in ear corn, kernel and cob. With 

 this data it has been possible to ascertain (see the three 

 columns 4, 5 and 6 in the table) : 



First, the number of bushels of shelled corn, in its fresh 

 or green state, as husked. 



Second, the number of bushels to which _ this green 

 shelled corn would shrink, when kiln-dried until it contained 

 only ten per cent of water, thus representing corn that has 

 been kept in a dry crib for several months, until it will shrink 

 no more. 



Third, the number of bushels of chemically dry corn, with 

 no water whatever in it. The farmer speaks of old, crib- 

 cured corn as dry, but such grain contains at least ten pounds 

 of water in every hundredweight. But the sixth column 

 shows the number of bushels of chemically dry matter in 

 the crops. 



It is on the basis of dry matter that the crops are 

 arranged in the table, and the prizes awarded. The dry 

 matter, not the amount of water in a crop, measures its 

 value. For instance, crop No 5, of one hundred and thirty 

 bushels of shelled corn, green weight, being grown in Georgia, 

 where the latter part of the season was quite dry, contained 

 only sixteen per cent of water; the one hundred and thirty 

 bushels, therefore, contained one hundred and ten bushels of 

 chemically dry corn or dry matter. But crop No 7, from the 

 moister Illinois climate, contained twenty-seven per cent of 

 water in its kernels, so that its one hundred and thirty bushels 

 of green or fresh corn yielded only ninety-five bushels of dry 

 matter. Crop No 5, although apparently exactly the same 

 size, really contained fifteen bushels more of actual corn. 



