420 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Dec., 1898. 
and proyided with a wooden handle. It can also be done by throwing the 
kernels into boiling fat, a few at a time. They sink, but soon pop and come to 
the top. Popping can also be done in hot ashes. The writer has seen corn 
_ popped in Southern Russia by burying it in hot sand on the bottom of a sauce- 
pan. Whichever way the operation is done, the kernels come on top, pop, and. 
burst, turning the inner part outside, which then looks quite white and puffy, 
and is sometimes twenty times as large as the original kernel. 
It is surprising, says the good doctor, how much popped corn a man can 
eat. A peck is a moderate allowance.* Popped corn is easily digested, and 
children can have an unlimited supply of it. 
Time and space at my disposal becoming short, I cannot say much on the 
different sorts of maize. They are innumerable, for maize is a plant easily 
crossed and adapting itself rapidly to new environments, In addition to the well- 
characterised sweet corn for boiling, pop corn for popping, we can divide the 
others into two principal well-defined classes—the round-seeded flinty maize, 
and the long flat horse-tooth-like seeded maize. The former (the flinty), of 
which the best types we have are the 90-day and the Harly Yellow Flint, are 
usually hardy, early, and give the best flour. They withstand also best the 
attacks of weevils. Their seed is heavy, but there are proportionately less 
bushels or volunies to the acre. The cob, though of large size, contains a 
thick bulky pith, which reduces the volume of shelled corn. In that respect 
the horse-tooth-like varieties have the advantage. ‘heir pith is usually thin, 
and the grain being long, flat, and close set, the number of bushels compared 
with the crop of cobs is very considerable indeed. Most of the members of 
this class are usually late corns, taking four and sometimes five months to 
ripen. An exception in that respect is the Little Early Yellow Dent, introduced 
a few years ago from America by the Department of Agriculture. It ripens 
as quickly as the 90-day, and stands the drought well, The Large 
American Dent, the Red Nibbed, and the recently introduced Golden King 
are, in addition to the above-mentioned Early Yellow Dent, amongst the best 
members of this class of corn. 
_ There are many points yet in maize-growing, such as tasselling and topping, 
which are rather objectionable, and suckering, so. largely practised in these 
colonies, although comparative experiments have proved it everywhere to be, to 
say the least, an unremunerative work. But cultivating, on the other hand, 
can hardly be oyerdone. Careful experiments haye proved that by cultivation 
the crop can be increased from 10 to 50 per cent., according to the number of 
times (from to 4: or 5) the cultivator does its work between the rows. But 
JL abstain from entering into further details. I abstain also from quoting 
figures on the cost of production. The circumstances, such as soil, implements 
used, state of the roads, distance from railway and market, &c., vary so much 
in each individual case, that no two farmers would quote the same figures. But 
JI will conclude this article with the following theses, which form, so to say, my 
present credo on maize-growing:— 
_ 1. Maize-growing by hand labour only is tedious, unpleasant, and 
unprofitable farming. 
2. By the use of the above-described or other similar labour implements 
and rational use of labour, maize-growing becomes a pleasant and 
most profitable branch of farming. 
. 8. When the price of maize falls below 2s. per bushel, it should be 
turned on the farm into bacon, eggs, and other concentrated 
products. 
4, We, Australians, living in one of the best maize-growing countries 
in the world, should follow the example of our American cousins 
and make a far larger use of corn in our diet. It is a food equally 
acceptable to rich and poor, being no more out of place on the table 
of the king than on the plate of the humblest in the land. 
* It should be remarked here that a handful of kernels will make a peck of popped corn. 
