INDIAN COEN. 



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It is now employed largely for this purpose, and no plant answers 

 better, or gives more feed to the acre when properly manured and 

 managed. Corn was at one time greatly recommended for making 

 sugar, and many experiments were tried with it in the United States, 

 but it evidently did not prove profitable, as for many years we have 

 heard nothing of corn-stalk sugar. This by the way was no new 

 use for this plant, as Prescott, in his History of the Conquest of 

 Mexico, after noticing several of the most important articles of their 

 industry, says that the great staple of the country, as indeed of the 

 American continent, was maize or Indian corn, which grew freely 

 along the valleys, and up the steep sides of the Cordilleras to the high 

 level of the tableland. The Aztecs were as curious in its preparation, 

 and as well instructed in its manifold uses as the most expert New 

 England housewife. Its gigantic stalks, in these equinoctial regions, 

 afford a saccharine matter not found to the same extent in northern 

 latitudes, and supplied the natives with sugar little inferior to the 

 cane itself ; which was not introduced among them till after the con- 

 quest in 1519. Indian corn is also largely used for distilling all over 

 North America, and in South America it appears to have been made 

 into CMca or maize beer at a very remote period — it was a common 

 drink of the Indians long before the Spanish conquest. It was com- 

 monly made in a similar manner to ordinary beer. The liquor is said 

 to be of a dark yellow colour, with an agreeable slightly bitter acid 

 taste ; it is in universal demand on the west coast of South America, 

 and is consumed in vast quantities by the Mountain Indians ; scarcely 

 a single hut in the interior is without its jar of this favourite liquor. 

 Besides the use made of Indian corn as food and drink for man in its 

 various preparations, it is largely used for feeding cattle and stock of 

 all kind. In the Western States, cattle and pigs are turned into the 

 corn fields and there fatten for the market, thus saving all harvesting. 

 With us it is used for feeding pigs, either whole or ground into meal, 

 and also for feeding cattle when fattening during winter. It is ex- 

 cellent for feeding to milk cows during winter and spring, and is 

 sometimes fed to horses ; indeed all kinds of stock on a farm — horses, 

 cattle, sheep, pigs, and poultry — will readily eat and seem fond of 

 Indian corn. We hear of corn being sometimes used for fuel in the 

 West, where wood and coal are scarce and dear and corn is cheap. 

 In Illinois and other parts they use the corn cobs chiefly for summer 

 fuel ; when kept dry they burn well, and are no bad substitute at that 

 season for wood or coal. There are many varieties of Indian corn 

 known, of which the most prominent are those distinguished by 

 colour, as white, red or brown, and yellow ; those that have different 

 numbers of rows on the ear, as the eight, ten, twelve, to twenty-four 

 rowed kinds; those that differ in taste, as the sweet and common 

 kinds ; and those that have some peculiarities in their kernels, as the 

 horse tooth, gourd seed, rice corn, &c., &c. There is no doubt that 

 this plant can be much improved by selection and cultivation, and 

 that varieties may be multiplied to almost any extent by judicious 

 selection of kinds, and crossing by careful impregnation. Almost 

 every corn grower has his favourite kind; but scarcely any kind will 

 thrive better than the common eight-rowed yellow corn. Though 



