Excerpts from: Remarks by Secretary of Agriculture Orville L. Freeman at the Iowa ceremony marking the 35th year of national farm legislation and recognizing Triple-A personnel, Wednesday, May 15, 1968, Des Moines, Iowa: In Iowa, the state average price for corn dropped to 12 cents a bushel in December of 1932, but the price hit 8 and 10 cents a bushel, or lower, in some counties. In fact, with coal prices high and corn low, with the cribs full of corn and the coal bins empty, many Iowa farmers — as you well remember — turned to burning corn to heat their homes. They also melted some grates until they learned to feed the ears in slowly. Corn burning experiments were conducted by the Iowa Engineering Experiment Station at Iowa State College, Ames. It was found that 141 pounds of Iowa ear corn, with 8 percent moisture had the same heating value as 100 pounds of Iowa coal.
