38 ILLINOIS STATE DAIIIYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



en by anyone except by a few. It is less than 100 years since potatoes have 

 been used at all in Ireland. 



During the war of the rebellion, through the reading of medical jour- 

 nals relating to the care of armies, our physicians observed in the journals 

 that oatmeal mush, or oatmeal gruel was one of the best, and possibly the 

 best article of diet to give to a patient when very eicki, and the restiljt was 

 that through the doctors oatmeal was brought to this country. It was first 

 sold in five-pound cans, and given out on prescriptions of the physician 

 w T hen he made his prescription for medicine, and from that beginning oat- 

 meal, which was then only eaten in Scotland, and not in England, has be"- 

 come what you know to be one of the most important articles of diet 

 throughout the earth. 



Now, 69 per cent of the people of this earth know nothing of Indian 

 corn as food for human beings. Only 31 per cent of the people of the earth 

 know Indian corn as food for the brain. It seems to us, the representatives 

 of the American Maize Propaganda, that it is the duty of the world, as well 

 as to ourselves, to teach the world that Indian corn is a wholesome, nutri- 

 tious, palatable diet for the brain. 



Eight milion of people starve to death or die from famine and its ac- 

 companying diseases. Think of it; twice the population of the state of Illi- 

 nois, and at that time in many localities in the United States corn was be- 

 ing burned as a fuel. Why did we not send it to them? 



We had a million revolving wheels carrying grain to the other side witfi 

 a capacity to carry more across the ocean. We might just as well have sent 

 them sawdust or sand, because they did no know how to use Indian corn, 

 or what to do with it, I suppose. They did not know it was food. Those of 

 the people on the earth who do not know of corn as food, or Indian corn at 

 all, of the 60 per cent that I have me ntioned, only know of it as food for 

 beasts, or to be distilled into spirits. 



Now, this ignorance, this want of knowledge concerning Indian corn, is 

 not confined to Asia, it is almost as bad in Europe. 



When I went to Copenhagen, after a month or six weeks I began to 

 think that there was something I wanted that they did not have. It was some 



