Value of Maize.

Patea Mail, 25 November 1880, Page 3

Value of Maize.

The merits of Indian corn as a rotation crop are set forth by the British Commissioners, Messrs Read and Pell, who have been enquiring into American agriculture in its effect on prices at Home. They say:—“ Maize, as a rotation crop, answers tho same end as root crops in England. Tho land is rested, cleaned, and enriched by its introduction. There is no crop in which so little hazard is incurred as this. With wheat the uncertainty is great; out of eighteen crops in Ohio only six were full crops, some were utterly destroyed by drought; but during the same period maize never failed, and the average yield was 35 bushels. . . While the profit which the farmer derives in England by the growth of roots is an indirect one, and is estimated by taking into consideration the value of the manure which is left from their consumption by sheep or cattle, in America the profit is a direct one. Maize bought at Is Did a bushel brings back Is 3d when given to pigs, even if the latter sell as low as 1-g-d per lb live weight. , . While large quantities of maize arc consumed in the middle and eastern States in tho production of beef and pork, this grain is universally in requisition for human food, coming to the tabic at all meals and in all forms, and a very considerable quantity is manufactured for export in the form of spirits.”

The suitableness of maize for West Coast cultivation cannot be doubted. In a well written summary of the Commissioners’ report on maize cultivation} the Rangitikoi Advocate says :—“Maize affords wholesome and nutritious food for man and beast, whether as green cobs on the table, sweet chopped fodder in the manger, or later in the year as ground into flour for cakes and bread, or given in profuse abundance unshelled or shelled to cattle and pigs. The period during which maize may be sown with prospect of an excellent crop is unusually long, and it may be left standing or in shocks far longer than wheat. Whilst wheat depends very much on the season, thorough cultivation will ensure a good crop of maize in almost any season. The cost of growing a bushel of maize in lowa when the yield is 40 bushels per acre is a little under 7d. The regulation weight for a bushel of shelled maize is 5 G pounds, and that of unshelled 70 pounds. From 1871 to 1878 the average price of maize was Is 94 per bushel, and tho average yield from 1803 to 1878 was 26§ bushels per acre. On really first-class land tho yield is as high as from 60 to SO bushels an acre. One man with a pair of horses will sow and cultivate forty acres of maize on virgin soil. “As a proof of how profitable maizegrowing must be in the United States,

wc may mention that the area planted increased from thirty-five million acres in 18GS to fifty-one and a-half millions in 1878. The great bulk of the enormous quantity raised is consumed at home, only six per cent, being exported. Most of the maize is consumed in the locality where it is grown, in feeding dairy cows, in fattening cattle and pigs for tho market, and as an article of human food. It is chiefly from the maize States that tho primest oxen arc exported to supply beef to the English market. It is well-known that New Zealand farmers too often go on raising wheat year after year till they have utterly exhausted the soil. “ Now, a crop of maize affords the needed rest and recuperation ; it is easily grown; with careful cultivation it is almost independent of seasons ; when grown it is not half as perishable as wheat; and finally, it is capable of being made highly profitable. All this being so, we do not sec what better advice we could give to the farmers of the West Coast, than to exhort them to try maize as a rotation crop whenever they find that their land is becoming exhausted by Hie production of wheat. Such a course would largely increase the chance of obtaining good yields of wheat, and

the farmer might make almost as much out of his laud whilst it was “ resting,” as when it was growing the most exhaustive of crops.”