Maize-Growing.
The corn crop is preeminently the most valuable crop of the United States. Through this crop there is derived each year from the soil of the United States a value of more than a billion dollars. If the hay crop, though made up of crops of several distinct plants, be considered as a single crop, it is but one-half as valuable as the grain alone of the corn crop. Corn holds first place in the list of crops, hay second, cotton third and wheat fourth. North America produces four times as much corn as the remainder of the world. As continents, Europe stands second, South America third and Africa fourth. As a corn-producing country the United States has no rival ; Argentina stands sec ond, Hungary third and Italy fourth.
If the corn crop of the United States for 1906 had been placed in wagons, fifty bushels per load, and allowing twenty feet of space for each wagon and team, the train of corn would have reached nine times around the world at the equator.
Below are arranged the states of the United States in the order of the total amount of corn each state has produced in the five years 1902 to 1906, and again arranged according to the average yield per acre for the ten years 1897 to 1906. The figures are averaged from the reports of the Bureau of Statistics of the United States Department of Agriculture: The following table of corn production in Canada is taken from the Canada Year Book for 1905. It is for the census year of 1901, being the crop of 1900. It is seen that very little corn is grown except in the province of Ontario. Quebec stands second, far behind Ontario, but much in the lead of the other provinces, where corn is unimportant.
Ism Acres Bushels in the ear Canada 360 758 25,875,919 British Columbia . 51 1,849 Manitoba 62 1,944 New Brunswick . . 259 12,509 Nova Scotia . . . 177 9,358 Ontario 331 641 24,463,694 Prince Edward Island 37 834 Quebec 28,506 1,384,331 The Territories . . 25 1,400 From the statistics of the last four census years it is seen that the production of corn is rapidly increasing. The figures are for all Canada: History.
In the early writings and history of both North and South America, the importance of maize is recognized and frequent mention is made of it. However, these early writings mention it as a well-known plant, so that descriptions of it are few and nothing positive appears re garding its origin or the char acter of the plant when it was first utilized by the native in habitants of America. We know
that there were different kinds of maize in America at the time of its discovery. It is probable that such different kinds of corn as pod, flour, flint, dent, sweet, and pop of various colors, ex isted at that time. It is certain that by seed selection, preserva tion and cultivation the settlers of America have improved these different types.
De Candolle states positively as follows : "Maize is of Ameri can origin and has been intro duced into the Old World only since the discovery of the New." Edward Enfield, in his book on Indian corn, published in 1866, is positive that maize is of American origin and states, "If any further evidence were want ing on this point, it may be found in the impossibility that a grain so nutritious, prolific and valuable, so ad mirably adapted to the wants of man, could have existed in the eastern world before the discovery of America without coming into general use and mak ing itself universally known. Had this cereal ex isted there at that period, it would have made its own record too clearly and positively to leave any doubt on the subject.' Harshberger states, "The evidence of archaeology, history, ethnology and philology points to southern Mexico as the primal habitat of this great New World cereal." [See pre ceding article.) The earliest explorers and settlers of all parts of the New World found maize in a state of cultiva tion and the principal food of the Indians. Thus, in Pickering's Chronological History of Plants this statement is made : "About 1002 A. D., Thorwald, brother of Leif, wintered in Vinland . . . and on an island far westward saw a wooden crib for corn." Columbus, in a letter to Ferdinand and Isa bella, dated May 30, 1498, speaking of his brother, says, "During a journey in the interior he found a dense population entirely agricultural, and at one place passed through eighteen miles of corn-fields." In Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, mention is made that Cortez, on his march to the city of Mexico in 1519, passed "amidst flourishing fields of maize." The historian, Torquemada, has extracted the par ticulars of the yearly expenditures of the Mexi can Palace. One item is 4,900,300 fanegas, or 490,030,000 pounds, of maize.