Rural Heritage April/May 2026

into general use). The stalks are then pastured off with cattle, horses and sheep. This is a much more wasteful practice than ensiloing since fully 40 per cent of the total food value of the plant is in the stems and leaves, and but little of this is recovered. Yields. These naturally vary greatly with the location, season, variety, quality of seed, type of soil and kind of farmer. The average yield per acre for the United States is close to 26 bushels, but no farmer should ordinarily be satisfied with such a performance. If he makes 50 or 75 bushels, he is doing very well, while a yield of 100 bushels or more indicates highly favorable conditions and good management. Small areas have produced at the rate of over 200 bushels, but this is hardly possible commercially under existing condi tions. Ten tons of silage corn is a good average yield. How corn is used. By far the greatest part of the corn crop of the United States is fed on the farms on which it is grown and is marketed in the form of beef, pork or mutton. In certain states, particularly Illinois, Nebraska, Iowa and Indiana, considerable grain is marketed, but most of this, too, finds its way back to the feed lot. Only about 2 percent of the total crop of the United States normally is exported and, occasionally, some is imported. Besides its extensive use in animal feeding, corn and its products are used in a variety of ways. The husks are made into mattresses, the pith of the

stalks into packing, the cobs into pipes and the grain into breakfast foods, alcohol and other food and commercial products. The most important corn products are: Corn meal , used chiefly for bread and mush; corn grits , or coarsely ground meal, used as a cereal; hominy , whole, cracked, or flaked, used as a cereal; glucose or corn syrup, made by changing the starch to sugar by treating it with a solution of hydrochloric acid; corn starch , extracted by washing, from the corn flour; gluten feed , left after the ex traction of glucose and starch; and germ meal , a byproduct of glucose, hominy and starch factories consisting largely of the germs of the kernels. Gluten feed and germ meal are rich in protein and are used chiefly for stock food. Oil is pressed from the germs and is used as a salad oil, in paints and as a substitute for vulcanized rubber. Corn oil cake , or the material left after the oil is pressed out is another protein stock feed. Distillery products , left after alcoholic beverages have been distilled from the crushed grain, are used in various forms as stock feed. ENEMIES The only disease of any importance attacking corn is the corn smut and even it does relatively little damage; there is no effective means of control. The corn-root worm and the corn-root louse attack only corn and are easily controlled by crop rotation. Cut worms, wire worms and grub worms are apt to do much damage to corn, especially on sod land; early fall plowing will disturb their winter quarters and destroy many worms. Chinch bugs, army worms and grasshoppers often attack the crop and do serious damage. The first two of which are most destructive in dry seasons, may be kept out of a field by a dust or oil barrier. The corn weevil does much damage to stored grain, especially in the Southern states, and is probably the most difficult to control of all insects attacking corn. Varieties with tight- fitting husks, completely covering the ear, if harvested and stored in the husk are usually attacked less than those with loose, open husks or those husked before being stored. An effective but rather expensive method of control is to store the grain in tight bins and treat it with carbon bisulphide or heat. Farm Knowledge Vol II: Soils and Crops, 1919.

Wagon with extra sideboard used in harvesting corn from the standing stalks.

April/May 2026

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