Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/523

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must be given to the imagination if their magnitude is to be appreciated. The corn crop of the United States for 1909 was valued at $1,720,000,000. So much money has not been spent on higher education and scientific research since the first university was established. Each day this crop grows, it increases in value by $14,000,000. An increase of six per cent, in the productivity of the corn crop, such as may result from a moderate amount of research work, perhaps from the efforts of a single man, would be worth a hundred million dollars a year.

Next to corn our most important crop is cotton, the value of which to the farmer last year was about $850,000,000. The United States produces about three fourths of the world's corn and about two thirds of its cotton.