To the tenants of the farm barns the corn meant even more than to those in the farm house. In August the cattle in dry pastures cast longing eyes and expressive voices toward the pale, green leaves and waving tassels of the sowed-corn, and great was their joy the first day they tasted this delicacy; in November, they munched the dry leaves of the planted crop, leaving in the barn-yard an angular patterned carpet of bare, hard stalks. In winter the corn meal, in proper proportions, made for them a food that kept them warm despite the cold winds that clutched at them, through crevices, with fingers of drifted snow. And no less dependent on this important crop were the denizens of the fold, of the sty, and of the chicken-yard. The old-time harvesting and husking are passing from the New York farm of to-day. The granary is no longer frescoed with braids of model ears, for the seed corn is now bought by the bushel from the seedsmen. The corn harvester has dissolved the partnership between corn and pumpkin and fells the stalks by the acre, doing away with the old-time stooks or shocks. Corn-stalks now become silage and are fed in a green condition throughout the winter. How often do we lose something of picturesqueness when we gain the advantages of modern improvements! Let us be thankful, however, that the corn harvester and the silo make efficient use of the great fields of corn. Although there is but one species of corn recognized (_Zea Mays_), there have been an endless number of varieties developed from it. Seven hundred and seventy of these were sufficiently distinct to be recognized when the Department of Agriculture published its account of varieties. The importance of the corn crop to this country and to others is almost incalculable. In 1902, the United States produced more than two and a half billion bushels and the export price was $.60 per bushel. When the corn crop fails every man, rich or poor, in America, suffers from it, and every business is affected by it. Though the man working in the cornfield may think only of his own crop, yet he is the man that is helping maintain the prosperity of our country. He is working for us all. QUESTIONS ON THE RIPENED CORN. 1. Is the corn crop in your vicinity good this year? 2. What affected it, beneficially or otherwise? 3. How many ears of corn are there usually on a mature stalk? 4. Are they on the same side of the stalk, or how are they disposed? 5. How many kinds of corn do you know? 6. Describe an average ear of each in the following particulars: shape and color of kernel; number of rows of kernels on the cob; number of kernels in a row; length of cob. Are the rows in distinct pairs? Do any of the rows disappear near the tip; if so, how many? 7. Study a cob with corn on it. Are the kernel-sockets of adjacent rows opposite each other or alternate?