Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1902-10-14

Iment does not indorse the CONNER
cial estimates which place this years
yield of corn at 2,500,000,00o bushels,
although it has no figures yet avail
able with which to challenge them.
THESE estimates were derived from 4
computation based on the crop re-
port of September 10. This would
make the yield break the record of
1890 by more than 100000 bushels;
this would be somewhat eNtraordina-
nv i'm view of the several facts. This
has not been a great corn year IN
the south, and two-fifths of the coun-
try's acreage of corn is in that sec
ton, although most of the corn rails
ed there is consumed on the farms
and so does not get into the COM
merce. Furthermore, the crop of the
| great corn states has been belated,
and in some places a month behind;
since we have had some prematurely
cool weather the danger of losses
from frost is considerable. The crop
is so well along, however, that facts
rather than estimates will soon be
available. Everybody agrees there
will be an extraordinarily large crop.
but conservative opinion points to Il
rather than about the figure named
in the commercial estimates.
The old employees of the treasury
who have watched the movements of
national finances say that the thing
they study most in forecasting money
conditions and general prosperity is
not the gold output, or the close of
the Transvaal wars. or the export of
steel. but the crop of corn. If that
is large they know that it certainly
means a great deal of material we'll
being. So large part of il goes into
| beef and pork and domestic animals
generally that its influence is ditfused
along many other lines. When other
cereals fail, their place can be taken
i'm a measure by corn. which is cheap
er, but when corn fails it's substitutes
entail added cost and cause consid-
cradle arrangement of the agricul-
tural markets.
The prominence of corn among
American agricultural crops is one of
the extraordinary facts of our ma
| tional life. Our corn kitchens at the
Paris and other eXpositions deserve
To ne there, not only 10 educate Euro
peanS in the use of corn as food, but
as an eXemplification of our own do
nestle resources. The simple grain
which Powhatan brought in his bask-
ct to the jamestown colonists was
destined to outrank many-fold in inn
portance to their posterity the gold
for which they vainly sought.
Corn was the last of the worlds
great grain crops to be brought un-
der the dominion of civilized agricui-
ture Its adaptation to the uses of
the white races seems to date from
the discovery of America. 1t is prob
ably Indigenous in Peru, or the Cen
trail American region. 1t is found in
the old Aztec graves. Americans
have failed to realize their special
ownership in corn. by reason of the
confusing use of the word in differ
ent countries. In Great Britain the
word is generally applied to wheat,
rye. oats and barley, while when "a
Scotchman says corn" he means
oats" Of maize, to which we apply
the word, we produce three-fourths
of the worlds crop. This occasional
| w by the wheat crop, and more often
| by that of oats, has now obtained
such proportions that it seems likely
greatest cereal The climate places
some limitations upon its culture.
Prejudice among many foreign peo-
pies as to its use for food for human
beings has also limited its range of
usefulness. But both these influences
are losing their force. Corn, origi-
nalIy Indigenous to a semi-tropicai
zone, responds readily to processes
of decentralization. while the Euro
pean prejudice seems to be abating.
A striking feature of the corn crop
of this hemisphere is the predomin
ance of the United States. The en-
tire continent of South America has
produced for the last five years on
an average about the same number
of bushels as the state of Ohio. Dur
ing that period the United States has
produced 90 per cent of the corn of
this entire hemisphere. With us the
crop practically averages i'm quantity
from two to three times that of
wheat.
Austria Hungary is the second corn
producing country of the world; in
Roumania it is the principal cereal
crop. In parts of France, Spain, Por
tugal, Italy, Servia, Bulgaria and in
southern Russia it has become an inn
portant product. Corn is cultivated
in this country from the most easter
ly county in Maine to Puget Sound.
and from the valley of the Red river
of the North almost to the very Ever
glades of Florida. Its production is
more generally distributed than any
thing except grass, and yet at no ag-
ricultural census ever taken has less
than about 40 per cent of the total
been produced in four great corn
states. OF recent years these four
states have produced more than half
the american crop. 1t is the opinion
of John Hyde, statistician of the de
partment of agriculture, as expressed