Revolution in the corn belt

Title

Creator

Steel, Kurt

Language

English

Year

1946

Subject

Corn.

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

(Condensed from Harper's Magazine)

Four and a half million American farmers have put 13,000,000 bushels of seed corn into the ground this year. If all of it were planted in one field, that field would be about the size of the state of California. The harvest will be more than three billion bushels—enough to fill a freight train stretching half-way around the world. Corn is our greatest crop by any measurement—acreage, bulk or valuc. It is usually worth about as much as our cotton, wheat and oat crops combined.

Fulltext

Revolution In The Corn Belt (Condensed from Harper’s Maga zine—Kurt Steel) Four and a half million American farmers have put 13,000,000 bushels of seed corn into the ground this year. If all of it were planted in one field, that field would be about the size of the state of California. The harvest will be more than three billion bushels—enough to fill a freight train stretching half-way around the world. Corn is our greatest crop by any mea surement—acreage, bulk or value. It is usually worth about as much as our cotton, wheat and oat crops com bined. The story of corn is more exciting than any list of statistics. To begin with, it is a mystery story. No one knows how corn originated. It is an orphan among grains, belonging to no known family. As if to make up for this, com has attached itself so devotedly to man for unnumbered centuries it has depended on man’s help for its survival. No corn has ever been found growing wild. Why? Look at an ear, its kernels tightly packed together and wrapped in many layers of husk. When it falls to the ground, this wrapping prevents the individual kernel from sprouting. Or if by accident they do sprout, there will be so many in a hill that they will starve each other out. We do know that the birthplace of corn was somewhere in North or Cen tral America. Probably Mexico or Guatemala. It has been continuously cultivated in the Western Hemisphere for perhaps 20,000 years. Taken to of their sires who made freedom a real ity through sacrifices not alone in battle but also in peace.’’ The National Library is maintaining the Gallery of Art and History Divi sion where not only works of art arc kept, preserved and exhibited but also historical objects. It is the plan of Mr. Montilla to maintain eventually a spe cial collection of July 4th souvenirs or commemorative objects, and works or publications for the daily inspiration of future generations who may desire to visit the gallery. In America, according to Mr. Montilla all the souvenirs of July 4th in 1776, are priceless rarities which are zealously kept and preserved by collectors and museum curators. Each donation will be exhibited with individual legends bearing the names of the donors so that the future may know its benefactors, said the Library Chief. Europe in the 16th century, corn ra pidly made itself at home. Today it is the one global plant. It can be grown in every land where man car ries on agriculture. Thus a revolution in corn culture should be of incalculable value in feeding and rehabilitating a war shat tered world. And just such a revolu tion is taking place. Its cyclonic is “hybrid” corn. This scientific revolution can be seen from a train window in all but four states. In Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio the change has been so complete as to leave almost no tra ces of the old order. In the other eight states of the corn belt, and to a lesser degree in the rest of the 48 states the revolution is still going on. What the traveler sees is first a field with the same ragged unbarbered look that cornfields have had for thousands of years—and 200 yards beyond, a second field where the tas seled crest is as neat and trim as a crow haircut. In the first field some stalks are lofty and spindling, others short and stocky; the ears grow high, low and middling; and hundreds of stalks have been broken and uprooted by wind and hail. In the second field the plants are like identical paper dolls, not a single stalk is bent over, and the ears hang uniformly at waist height. At harvest time, since no machine can, reach high and stoop low to gather ears, the first farmer must bring in his crop by hand, and it will take a good man to husk as much as 100 bushels a day. But in the second field any two high school boys able to drive a tractor can bring in the harvest with a machine which picks and husks 1000 bushels of corn a day. In many sections of Illinois and Iowa 90 per cent of the corn is husked by machinery. In 1925 it took 14 man-hours of hard work to grow an acre of corn. Machinery on the best farms has cut this to six man-hours of labor. Last fall the old-fashioned farmer laid out no cash for seed; he used the most likely-looking ears saved from his own crop. The progressive farmer this spring paid a commercial producer about $80 for enough hy brid seed to plant his 60-acre field. (Continued on page 19) FARMING AND COOPERATIVES 15 Revolution In The... (Continued from page 15) His yield will be some 25 bushels per acre more than that of his neigh bor—or enough to bring him an ad ditional income of $900. Scores of other advantages offered by hybrid corn are less apparent but even more important in the long run. For example the University of Illinois has produced strains containing twice as much protein and three times as much oil as ordinary corn. Other strains especially rich in certain ele ments have enormously speeded up the mass production of penicillin, of which corn steep liquor—a by pro duct of starch making—is an essen tial ingredient. Ten years ago, less than half of one per cent of the corn planted in Illi nois was hybrid. This year 98 per cent of Illinois corn will come from hybrid seed; in Iowa, just under 100 per cent. ( 7 o Ar continued) FARMING AND COOPERATIVES 19

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