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WHAT COMES FROM CORN


The discovery of America dowered mankind with a world of new flora. The
early explorers in their haste to gather up gold paid little attention
to the more valuable products of field and forest, but in the course of
centuries their usefulness has become universally recognized. The potato
and tomato, which Europe at first considered as unfit for food or even
as poisonous, have now become indispensable among all classes. New World
drugs like quinine and cocaine have been adopted into every
pharmacopeia. Cocoa is proving a rival of tea and coffee, and even the
banana has made its appearance in European markets. Tobacco and chicle
occupy the nostrils and jaws of a large part of the human race. Maize
and rubber are become the common property of mankind, but still may be
called American. The United States alone raises four-fifths of the corn
and uses three-fourths of the caoutchouc of the world.

All flesh is grass. This may be taken in a dietary as well as a
metaphorical sense. The graminaceae provide the greater part of the
sustenance of man and beast; hay and cereals, wheat, oats, rye, barley,
rice, sugar cane, sorghum and corn. From an American viewpoint the
greatest of these, physically and financially, is corn. The corn crop of
the United States for 1917, amounting to 3,159,000,000 bushels, brought
in more money than the wheat, cotton, potato and rye crops all
together.