Modern Business Geography 
United States Department of Agriculture 
Fig. 32. One of the members of a Boys’ Corn Club in South Carolina and the corn that he grew. 
[n an ordinary year the Corn Club members raise an average of 75 bushels to the acre in regions 
where 30 bushels to the acre is considered a good average crop, and some boys raise 200 bushels. 
Careful seed selection and intensive cultivation explain the high yield. 
or hominy, corn flakes, corn cakes, or other corn dishes, it would be 
almost impossible for him to eat in a year the thirty bushels that rep- 
resent his share. In a year each of us eats scarcely more than a 
bushel or two of corn. But we do consume much of the remainder 
of our share in the form of bacon, pork, lard, ham, beef, and other meat 
products; for hogs and cattle eat vast quantities of corn. It is the 
best cereal for fattening stock, partly because it contains more oil 
than any other. The rest of our share of the thirty bushels of corn 
is exported in the form of these same cattle products. 
Corn is a truly American crop. It was king in America even 
before the coming of the white man. In those days Europeans had 
never heard of it. The early settlers soon learned about it from 
the Indians, who scratched the soil with a stick and put fish in the 
hills for fertilizer before dropping in the grain. Since then corn has 
been carried to many lands, but its most important production is 
still in America. 
Why corn thrives in our corn belt. The United States, as we have 
seen, raises nearly three fourths of the world’s crop of corn. As corn 
is grown in every state in the Union, it is easy for almost any 
American boy or girl to see just how it is planted, cultivated, and