OCR Text |
Show is considerably above the average as the only years in whicn our outturn has exceeded 3 billion bushels are 1923, 1921, 1920, and 1912, the high record year having been 1920 with a total of 3,208,000,000 bushels. The world crop has only exceeded the 4 billion bushel one three occasions,' 1920, 1915, and 1910, the high record for the world being that of 1914, 4,232,000,000 bushels. Present indications indi-cations are that the world crop of 1923 may again cross the four billion line. THE WORLD CORN CROP Th announcement that the corn crop of the United States is again above the 3 billion bushel line lends interest to some figures on the corn crop of the world, compiled for the Trade Record of The National City Bank of New York. These figures show that while our corn crop seldom crosses the 3 billion bushctl line, the world production seldom goes above the 4 billion bushel mark. In other words.says the Trade Record, we habitually produce about three- fourths of the corn of the world. j This production which we produce j of the world's corn crop has continued continu-ed for many years. In the 10 years ! since the beginning of the war our . production of corn was 29 billion .bushels anl that of the whole world about 37 billion, making our shar2 of the world crop in the 10 year period since the beginning of the war about 78 per cent. In the 20 years ' preceding pre-ceding the war our crop aggregatel 47 billion bushels anl that of the worll about 64 billion, making our share in the pre-war period of 20 years about 73 per cent. This increased percentage of, world's outturn produced by the United Unit-ed States in the period since the be-! ginning of the war is probably due 1 in some degree to a slight decrease in production in the corn belt of southern Europe but probably in larger proportion to the increased demand upon us for the chief products pro-ducts of the corn crop, meats. In fact, the continent in which corn is supposed to have originated, North America, still produces three-fourths of the world's output. The principal corn producing area ! of the world outside of the United States is Argentina in South America, Am-erica, Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria, Cze-cho-Slovakia, Hungary and France in Europe, South Africa and Egypth in Africa, and India in Asia, and all of these countries in combination produce pro-duce only one third as much as the United States. Corn prefers a comparatively com-paratively warm climate and so it happens that the countries of northern north-ern Europe are extremely small producers, pro-ducers, even Russia with her enor- j mus agircultural area averaging but I about 50 million bushels a year year out of the world's 4 billion bushels, while Germany and the Scandinavian i States produce but extremely small ! quantities. Argentina is by far the largest single producer outside of the United States and even her annual crop of about 250,000,000 bushels is much less than the average crop of our single state of Iowa. The chief corn area of the United 1 States, adds the Trade Record, consists con-sists of a line of states stretching 1 westwardly from the eastern line of Ohio to the western line of Nebraska and Kansas, the 7 states of Ohio, Indiana, In-diana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri Mis-souri producing one-half of the 3 billion bil-lion bushels of corn grown in the United States, and if we add to this area the state of Kentucky at the j south and Wisconsin and Minnesota at the north, the annual corn pro- duction of that compact area of 10 states would be more than half that j of the entire world. What becomes of the 3 billion bushels of corn which we produce? Most of it is turned into moats, for every corn producer has miniture . "meat factory" on the farm in which ', he feeds a limited number of hogs ' and beef cattle for home consump- tion and for the market, to say noth-. noth-. ing of the quantity which lie feeds j to the horses which he must use in his farm work. The Department of . Agriculture estimates that 40 per cent of our corn crop is fed to swine, ' 20 per cent to farm horses, 15 per cent to cattle on farms and 5 per cent to livestock not on farms, 10 per cent for human food, while only about 2 per cent is exported in the natural state, though of course a large share of the meat exports represents rep-resents corn. The corn crop of the current year |