In 1539, De Soto, in Florida, speaks of Indian villages surrounded by extensive fields of corn. In one instance he narrates that his army passed through continuous fields of maize for two leagues. In one place they found 500 measures of ground maize, besides a large quantity of grain.
The Puritans, in King Philip's War in 1675, "took possession of 1,000 acres of corn, which was har vested by the English and disposed according to their direction." In 1680, La Salle found stores of corn in Illinois that the Indians had placed under ground for seed and subsistence. In his expedition against the Seneca Indians, Marquis de Nouville says, " On the 14th of July, 1685. . . . We remained at the four villages of the Senecas ten days. All the time we spent in destroying the corn, which, includ ing the old corn that was in cache, which we burned, was in such great abundance that the loss was computed at 400,00C minots, or 1,200,000 bushels." This was in Ontario county, New York.
Place of corn in American agriculture.
From the time of the early settlements, when maize saved the colonists from starvation, till the present, this crop has held an important place, not only in American agriculture, but in the develop ment and progress of this country. Other crops are of vital importance in certain limited sections ; so is the corn crop ; but in addition to this it is of considerable importance in almost every part of America. To a greater extent than perhaps any other plant, it has become adapted to various en vironments. For the various latitudes from Canada to the equator there are strains more or less per fectly adapted which lend themselves readily to further improvement and better adaptation. Suited to the short seasons of the far North are strains that mature in seventy or eighty days and grow but three or four feet tall (Fig. 602), while in the southern part of the United States (Fig. 626), in Mexico, Central America and South America, there are strains that reach a height of twenty feet or more and re quire half a year in which to reach ma turity.
The hard, smooth flints, mostly yellow flints and sweet corns, are generally grown in New England, the small early yellow dents and reddish dents in the northern states, large-eared white and yellow dents of the one-ear to-stalk strains in the central states, and white dents partly of the strains that produce two or more ears per stalk in the southern part of the United States.
Because of the need of a cultivated crop that can be used in rotation with small grains, corn is now extensively grown in Minnesota, North Dakota and elsewhere, where but a few years ago all atten tion was given to the growing of small grains, and corn-growing considered impracticable and unprofitable. The soils of the Pacific slope are also showing the exhaustive effect of one-crop farming, and corn for rotation is meeting with favor. Crop rotation is sure to replace the practice of summer or resting the land. By early planting, some of the earliest maturing strains can be grown to maturity before the dry season has continued sufficiently long to prevent growth.
Although produced so much more extensively than other grains, corn does not figure so promi nently in our export trade. Nearly all of it is fed to stock on the farms where it is produced. Only per cent of the amount grown in the United States is shipped to other countries as corn and corn meal. It is used for the most part on the farms for fattening cattle and hogs for exportation and home use. It is well for the future of American farming that this custom prevails so generally. A removal of the corn from the farms would much more quickly deplete their fertility. The feeding of it on the farms is the chief means of retaining their fertility.
'onsideration of the seed.
In order to produce a successful corn crop it is necessary that attention be given to the selection of seed the fall previous to the year in which the good crop is expected. The opinion is rather prev alent that if a good stand is obtained, it matters little by what method the required number of stalks is secured. The stand is sometimes obtained by planting a larger number of kernels per hill than the number of stalks desired. This method is not advisable for two principal reasons : First, such a method is sure to result in an uneven distribution of the plants in the field ; and second, if the seed germinates poorly, so that it is necessary to plant more than the number expected to grow, it is cer tain that the seed that does grow will have been reduced in vitality by the same conditions that caused the other grains to fail.