UNIVERSITY OF

CALIFORNIA.

MISCELLANEOUS USES OF CORN.

THOUGH the principal value of maize is due to its nutritive property, and its highest importance lies in the amount and quality of the food it supplies, there are yet other and various economical purposes for which the several parts of it have been found to be well adapted.

PAPER AND CLOTH.-Many attempts have been made, with various success, to use the fibre of corn in the manufacture of paper. This fibre is contained in the husk, stalk, and leaves; but a larger proportion of it, and perhaps a better quality, is found in the husk. The attempts to produce paper from this fibre have not thus far been very successful in this country, but in Austria a process has been discovered and patented for making a very superior article of cornfibre paper, of various grades, and of the finest and strongest texture.

The inventor of this process is Chevalier Auer Van Welsbach, a native of Austria, and a member of the Imperial Government. His experiments have been conducted for a series of years under the patron

age of the government, and have resulted successfully in rendering the fibre of maize entirely capable of conversion into paper of all kinds, as well as cloth.

A variety of samples in our possession seem to establish, beyond any doubt, the excellence of this paper, and the fitness of corn-fibre for producing it. It is confidently asserted that the cost of making it from this material is less, compared with the quality, than from any other material known. From the finest tissue to the strongest hardware paper, every intervening grade has been produced by this Austrian process.

It has been officially stated that, on the authority of artists and literary institutions, it is shown that from no other material, so far known, official, drawing, or tracing papers of such durability and tenacity, at equally low prices, have been produced. It is also asserted that the better qualities of post, fancy, and colored papers made of this fibre compete successfully with the finest of the same kind made from rags.

It is also a remarkable fact that, from the same fibre of corn that is found capable of producing this diversity of papers, various grades and textures of cloth have been made, from the thin fabric used for summer clothing to the strongest oil-cloth.

It seems a strange and almost incredible thing, that a plant grown in this country to greater extent and perfection than anywhere else, should be first applied to new and valuable uses under a European invention. Yankee ingenuity, so long proverbial throughout the world, has in this instance been

thrown in the shade, and will need to look to its laurels.

One thing is certain: if these fabrics can be produced, by the Austrian process, at the prices and of the qualities claimed for them, which there seems no reason to doubt, it is clearly the interest of this country to have the invention applied on a large scale among the cornfields of the West. Whenever the maize plant shall be made to produce largely, and at a moderate and paying price, other articles of utility and value besides food, it will undoubtedly give a new impulse to the growth and affluence of the country.

SYRUP AND SUGAR.-It has long been known that syrup can be made from the stalks of maize, and recently it has been ascertained that it may be successfully produced from the grain. Various attempts have been made to convert this syrup into sugar, but thus far with doubtful success. The syrup made from the stalk of corn is said to be of fair quality, but will probably never be able to compete with that produced from the Sorghum, now very generally and widely cultivated for the purpose.

There is reason to believe, however, that the syrup produced, by a late invention, from the grain of the corn plant, will be able to compete successfully with most others in the market, in regard to quality and price. This syrup is the product of the starch of corn, and may be made from that element more readily and less expensively than from the grain itself. It is found that a bushel of corn will yield three

gallons of the syrup, and the quality is by good judges pronounced excellent.

DISTILLATION.-This cereal has also, like some other of the best gifts of the Deity, been perverted to base and injurious uses. In Ohio and some other parts of the West it is employed in the manufacture of high wines and whiskey. While man is endowed with a twofold nature of good and evil, it is hardly perhaps to be expected that all the beneficent gifts of Providence will be exclusively appropriated to their highest and most valued purposes. But though the amount of corn consumed by the distiller appears large in the abstract, it is yet relatively small, and dwindles to comparative insignificance when viewed in connection with the vast quantities absorbed by other and better uses.

OIL.-The vegetable oil contained in the grain of Indian corn is capable of separation by chemical means, and when thus extracted is more or less useful in various ways. For illuminating purposes it has been tried in some of the light-houses on the Western lakes, and found available. It is doubtful, however, whether the proportion of oil yielded by corn (sixteen gallons to one hundred bushels of grain), taken in connection with the expense of separating it, will render it sufficiently economical for general use.

GREEN MANURE.-For soils deficient in vegetable matter, ploughing in green crops is found by experience to be very useful. It supplies the precise material most wanting in such cases, and in quantities that cannot fail to prove effective. Buckwheat and

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clover have hitherto been more generally employed for this purpose than any other crop, and the effect is invariably good. But green corn when used for the same object can be made to yield a much larger amount of vegetable matter, and is therefore capable of producing a larger result. Farmers have lately given considerable attention to this subject, and some of the results of recent experience go to show that great and almost incredible fertilizing effects may be in this way accomplished, especially in those cases where the condition of the soil requires a large addition of vegetable matter.

FUEL.-In some parts of the West where corn is abundant and easily raised, and fuel is expensive and difficult to procure, farmers have sometimes found it both convenient and economical in winter to use a part of their surplus corn in feeding their fires. In well-wooded countries, and in the vicinity of coalregions, this practice will probably never become necessary. But there are districts of country in some of the Western States where the distance from coal mines, the extent of the prairie, and the absence of railroads make it difficult to procure either firewood or coal at any reasonable price. It is fortunate for the farmer, in such cases, that Indian corn can be produced at such a rate of cost and in such abundance that, after appropriating all that is needed for the wants of his family and the requirements of his stock, he has still an ample supply left to insure a warm and cheerful hearth through the long winter evenings.