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cultivated for food by men. It probably originated in Paraguay, or on the upper plateau of Mexico and subsequently developed into its present form and productive usefulness.

Corn is so essential to the life and welfare of the native tribes of North America, that it has formed the basis of their religion; the subject of their songs, and the object of their prayers to deity. Corn has now become the greatest crop raised on the western hemisphere and we may say with confidence, in the world. It employes more acres and more industry than any other crop, amounting in the aggregate to nearly if not quite, as much as they devote to wheat, oats, rye, barley, buckwheat and cotton, combined. In its culture, harvesting and feeding it provides more employment for men than all other agricultural staples, yet in my study of this subject, I have been profoundly impressed by the remarkable fact that I find in the books, in examining a standard encyclopedia, I made the startling discovery that the subject of Corn occupied ten lines, while the subject of Cotton in the same volume occupied five pages and a colored chart. Whereupon I concluded that cotton as king of vegetable life, was a matter of much emphasis and proclamation, but that corn as king, was a matter of sturdy presistent, practical fact.

James L. Reid, was a citizen of Tazewell County and performed a noble and unselfish work in the development of a strain of corn which has given him and the county, world wide fame. He was a son of Robert and Anna Moore Reid. He was born near Russelville, Brown County, Ohio, December 26, 1844.

His parents with their family, consisting of their son, James L. Reid, and their daughter, Mary Reid, came to Tazewell County in the State of Illinois in the spring of 1846, and commenced farming on Delavan Prairie in that year. With their party, was a cousin William Reid and his family, who settled in Mercer County. Robert Reid the father was the last of a family of five sons, who left Ohio in response to the call of "The West." His older brother Daniel had preceded him to Delavan Prairie, his sister Eleanor Reid Glaze with her family had previously settled near Tremont in Tazewell County and two brothers, Davis and James Reid had prevviously located near La Fayette, in the State of Indiana.

Daniel Reid had previously sent word to his brother Robert to bring with him seed corn, as Illinois had no corn to compare with the Ohio variety which the family had before that grown. Robert therefore made space in his covered wagon for a few bushel of yellow corn, known as the Gordon Hopkins in the State of Ohio, their former home. This was a yellow corn having a peculiar copperish red tint below the surface of the kernels, but not red corn as many people, not acquainted with the facts have thought. The ears were small and very tapering. The kernels were small and inclined to be flinity. This variety was rather late in maturing.

Robert Reid, the father with his family located on a rented farm about four miles northeast of Delavan and there the seed corn he had brought with him was planted in the year 1846 on ground already prepared by his brother Daniel. Owing to the lateness of the date of planting crop, that year it made only a fairly good development with many immatured ears. The best of the matured corn was selected for the next year's planting and the result was a poor stand of corn in the spring of 1847. The field was replanted with a small yellow corn found in the neighborhood, the missing hills being put in with a hoe. From the spring of 1847 until the present date, this corn has not been purposely mixed with any other variety by the Reid family, although grown by them and their descendants annually up to the season of 1918, a consecutive period of seventy-two years.

In the year 1850, Robert Reid bought a farm two and a half miles northeast of Delavan, described as the northwest quarter of Section 2, Town. 22, range 4 west of the 3rd P. M. It was upon this farm that the seed of the Ohio variety received special care for fifty-one consecutive years, the father Robert Reid, keeping it pure, preventing it being mixed with other varieties and the son James devoting his especial attention to developing the strain in order to meet the needs of the commercial world. He was assisted by his brother John and his sister Mary, all of whom grew to manhood and womanhood on this place. James L. Reid, when a mere lad, learned to follow the plow, select seed corn and developed a knowledge of farm management. He was the product of the soil, the guidance and example of his father Robert and not of the

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