tite--the swelling ears of the big
white and the yellow gourd seed of the South. From the flexibility of
this plant, it may be acclimatised, by gradual cultivation, from Texas
to Maine, or from Canada to Brazil; but its character, in either case,
is somewhat changed, and often new varieties are the result. The
blades of the plant are of great value as food for stock, and is an
article but rarely estimated sufficiently, when considering of the
agricultural products of the Southern and Southwestern States
especially.

To supply slaves on plantations with bread, including old and young,
requires from twelve to thirteen bushels of corn each a year. Taking
thirteen bushels as the average consumption of breadstuffs by the
22,000,000 of people in the United States, the aggregate is
286,000,000 bushels per annum.

The increase of production, from 1840 to 1850, was 214,000,000
bushels, equal to 56 per cent.

The production of New England advanced from 6,993,000 to 10,377,000
bushels, showing an increase of 3,384,000 bushels, nearly fifty per
cent. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland,
increased 20,812,000 bushels, more than fifty per cent. In the
production of this crop no State has retrograded. Ohio, which in 1840
occupied the fourth place as a corn-producing State, now ranks as the
first. Kentucky is second, Illinois third, Tennessee fourth. The crop
of Illinois has increased from 2,000,000 to 5,500,000 bushels, or at
the rate of 160 per cent. in ten years.

Of the numerous varieties some are best adapted to the Southern
States, while others are better suited for the Northern and Eastern.
Those generally cultivated in the former are the Southern big and
small yellow, the Southern big and small white flint, the yellow
Peruvian, and the Virginian white gourd seed. In the more Northerly
and Easterly States they cultivate the golden sioux, or Northern
yellow flint, the King Philip, or eight-rowed yellow, the Canadian
early white, the Tuscarora, the white flour, and the Rhode Island
white flint.

The extended cultivation of this grain is chiefly confined to the
Eastern, Middle, and Western States, though much more successfully
grown in the latter. The amount exported from South Carolina, in 1748,
was 39,308 bushels; from North Carolina, in 1753, 61,580 bushels; from
Georgia, in 1755, 600 bushels; from Virginia, for several years
preceding the revolution, annually 600,000 bushels; from Philadelphia,
in 1