Photograph by Curtis & Miller 



FILLING CANS BY MACHINERY 

 Twenty million cases of canned salmon are filled annually in Alaska 



It will be seen from this that the per 

 capita production of wheat and rye in 

 the Central Powers is about 467 pounds, 

 while Germany's consumption is placed 

 at 525 pounds in normal times. It is 

 probable that the per capita consumption 

 is even greater in Austria-Hungary, Bul- 

 garia, and Turkey than in Germany. 



CORN AS HUMAN FOOD 



While a thorough appreciation of hoe- 

 cake and corn-pone is largely limited to 

 our own Dixie, and while corn is mainly 

 a stock food, still it occupies no incon- 

 spicuous place in the world's market bas- 

 ket, as any one who takes the time to ex- 

 amine consumption figures will find. The 

 grist mills of the United States in 1909 

 produced 27,000,000 bushels of cornmeal 

 and corn flour, and 837,000,000 pounds 

 of hominy and grits, while the canning 

 factories canned 168,000,000 cans of corn. 



It is said that Mexico's production of 



corn is worth more, in normal times, than 

 her production of gold, and although the 

 Mexican mines are world famous for the 

 prodigality of their yield, any one who 

 has seen at first-hand the universal sway 

 of the tortilla can well believe that the 

 Mexican cornfield outranks the Mexican 

 gold mine. 



Today the United States produces two- 

 thirds of the world's supply of corn. It 

 devotes a little more than twice as much 

 acreage to that crop as it does to wheat. 

 Our average yield is 23.1 bushels to the 

 acre (see page 32). 



There is no place better suited to dem- 

 onstrate the possibilities of scientific agri- 

 culture than in the handling of the na- 

 tion's corn crop. If we were to take the 

 average yields of all the boys' corn-grow- 

 ing clubs of the United States, we would 

 probably find them ranging around eighty 

 bushels to the acre. This would give a 

 total yield, on the basis of the present 



29 



