216 NOTES OX INDIAN CORN. 



The annual average wheat crop of the world is 900,000,000 bushels, 

 of which nearly 200,000,000 may be credited to the United States. In 

 1850 her corn crop was over 590,000,000 bushels, and in 1860 it was 

 fully 900,000,000, thus equalling the wheat crop of the whole earth. 

 The varieties of corn are numerous, and are continually increasing by 

 improvement, and the introduction of seed from one section to another. 

 The plant hybridises with great facility. Some choice varieties have been 

 originated in this way. It would be almost impossible to enumerate 

 the many varieties now cultivated, or to give the reasons why one is 

 preferred above the others. 



Visitors at the recent Royal Horticultural Society's collection, had 

 an opportunity of inspecting the greatest variety of Indian corn, per- 

 haps, ever before exhibited here, in the collections of Mr. P. L. Simmonds, 

 Messrs. Barr and Sugden (both of which received prize medals), and 

 the New York State Agricultural Society. The varieties of size, colour, 

 and shape were remarkable. 



With proper cultivation in an ordinary season the crop should not 

 be less than 60 bushels to the acre ; 100 bushels is not an uncommon 

 yield. The New York State Agricultural Society require a yield of 80 

 bushels to the acre to be entitled to a premium. 



It is a remarkable fact in connection with this subject that, although 

 the experience of the people of the entire American continent bears 

 uniform testimony in favour of the palatableness, the healthf illness, and 

 the economy of Indian corn, it is but little known to the people of those 

 portions of Europe to whom cheap food is the great desideratum. The 

 famine of 1847 brought it prominently into notice here, and once 

 having tasted it, even after imperfect cooking, it has secured a perfect 

 foothold. European chemists have discovered that corn contains 77 per 

 cent, of nutritive matter, while wheat contains but 95. "When a bushel 

 of wheat is worth 95 cents, one of corn is worth 77, nutriment alone 

 considered ; yet when corn has stood at 1 dol. per bushel, wheat has 

 stood at 2 dols. 50 cents ; thus, in buying wheat, we obtain, for any 

 given amount of money, a little less than half the nutriment we obtain 

 when buying corn. Why this disparity in price ? It must be mainly 

 sought for in supply and demand. Wheat is relished by a greater por- 

 tion of the human family ; it may be kept sweet more readily in any 

 of its stages of manufacture, whether stationary, or during transportation 

 by sea or land ; hence its superior commercial value. Then, all the 

 world is familiar with it as an article of food, while not a tenth of its 

 population ever heard of Indian corn. Wheat needs no introduction among 

 any people, while corn has required thorough judicious and persistent 

 effort by European Governments to induce even famishing communities 

 to consume it. 



It is well known that residents in American cities are small con- 

 sumers of Indian corn in comparison with those who live in rural dis- 

 tricts. This is because the former do not so well understand the art of 



