“The Garden of Eden must have been a seaport then,” mused Phil. “Adam and Eve probably boiled their new potatoes in water dipped up from the docks.”
The boys laughed, and Ed continued:—
“It is a curious fact that the ancients, even as late as Greek times, knew nothing about sugar; at least, in its pure state. They got a good deal of it in fruits and vegetables, of course, and the Greeks used honey very lavishly. They not only ate it, but they made an intoxicating liquor out of it which they called mead. But of sugar, pure and simple, they knew nothing whatever. Their language hasn’t even a word for it. Yet in our time sugar is one of the most important products in the world, so important that many nations pay large bounties to encourage its cultivation.”
“By the way,” asked Phil, after a few moments’ meditation, “what is the most important crop in this country?”
“Wheat”—“cotton,” answered Will and Constant respectively.
“No,” said Ed, “corn is very much our most important crop.”
“More so than wheat?”
“Four to one and more,” said Ed. “Our corn crop amounts to about two thousand million bushels every year—often greatly more. Our wheat crop averages about five hundred million bushels. And as corn has more food value in it, pound for pound, than wheat has, it is easy to see that not only for us, but for all the world, our corn crop is quite four to one more important than our wheat.”
“But I thought corn wasn’t eaten much except in this country?” queried Irv. “The Germans and French and English don’t eat it.”
“Don’t they, though?” asked Ed, with a quizzical look. “Don’t they eat enormous quantities of American pork, bacon, and beef? And what is that but American corn in another shape?”