INDIAN CORN. 



301 



being useful for human food, Indian corn meal is excellent for fatten- 

 ing stock, milch cows, sheep, and poultry. It is much used in dry 

 summers in the States as green forage, the stems being then very sweet 

 and agreeable to cattle. Where much Indian corn is grown in 

 America, the husks of the ears are saved, and used for stuffing mat- 

 tresses, bolsters, &c., and it is a material always clean, sweet, and 

 elastic. Paper is also made of a good quality for wrapping. The 

 dry stems and leaves also make fair fodder for cattle. 



The limits fixed by many agriculturists for the culture of this 

 cereal are very incorrect, as there is such an immense number of 

 varieties. Parmentier rightly signalizes this cereal as created for the 

 whole world, and as suiting itself to all climates. There is a short- 

 stalked maize, which suffers little from the action of the wind, and can 

 be planted in the north of France in double rows like the maize of 

 Auxonne and Burgimdy. It has been found that 35 to 40 hectolitres 

 can be obtained per hectare, weighing from 76 to 80 kilogrammes 

 per hectolitre. 



It is, however, in America that its value has been demonstrated. 

 There a couple of million farmers are engaged in the raising of maize ; 

 some lands producing 20 bushels to the acre, and others 150, swelling 

 the aggregate crop of the nation to vast proportions, the corn crop 

 amounting to several hundred million dollars in value. The grain 

 produced is sufficient to feed not only the population of the United 

 States, but half that of Europe in addition, for a year. It possesses 

 another value, which, under present circumstances, is an important 

 one. The sheathing leaf is the best adapted for paper of any material 

 yet tried. It was used in the manufacture of paper in Italy last 

 century, but the manufacture declined from obvious causes. Some 

 years ago the process was again taken up in Austria and in Switzer- 

 land. The paper made from it was reported to be much better than 

 that from rags, being stronger and more tenacious, and very little 

 size being requisite. It has none of the brittleness peculiar to 

 ordinary straw paper. Maize paper appears to be the most unexcep- 

 tionable of all the papers not made from rags. Not only is it re- 

 markably tough, but it is devoid of the silicious matter which proves 

 so embarrassing in ordinary straw paper, causing great brittleness 

 when folding, and rapidly destroying the face of printers' type. There 

 are large manufactories of the maize stalk in Austria ; the ' Algemaine 

 Zeitung ' is said to be exclusively printed on it. The extreme tough- 

 ness of the paper makes it particularly eligible for bank-note paper, 

 and for the purpose of envelopes. The colour is somewhat yel- 

 lowish, but it is easily bleached. 



Indian corn or maize is the staple and peculiar food crop of the 

 United States, although it is also grown in many other countries ; 

 but there it is harvested by hundreds of millions of bushels per 

 annum. Whenever Europe is short of food, America stands ready 

 to supply the deficiency with the excess of her corn crop, the super- 

 abundance of which she is obliged at present to fatten swine and live 

 stock on, or to convert into whisky. 



All the endeavours used by Cobbett and others since his time have 



