2633: The Town that Ate its Seed Corn: EVERYTHING Compounds

So I want to tell you a story that's called the town that ate its seed corn so once it happened that there was a prosperous little farming town there was good soil good people really hard workers and as far as anyone could remember the farmers of this town practiced a peculiar tradition every year after the harvest they took some of their very best corn and put it away not the rotten corn, not the leftovers, not the stuff that nobody wanted, their best corn.

They carried it into barns, carefully stored it, protected it from moisture and from mice, and they did absolutely nothing with it.

They didn't eat it.

They didn't sell it.

They didn't grind it into meal.

They just left perfectly good corn sitting in a barn.

Why? Because it was seed corn.

Their fathers had done it.

Their grandmothers had done it.

Their great grandmothers and great grandmothers had done it.

And like many traditions passed down through generations, eventually people remembered the rule, but they forgot the reason.

Then one year, a clever young fellow came to town.

He was educated, well-spoken, very progressive in his thinking.

And most importantly, he never planted corn.

He took one look inside the barns and he was astonished.

Do people realize how much perfectly good food is sitting here? The farmers explained, that's our seed corn.

Yes, he said, I understand what you call it.

I'm asking why hungry people aren't allowed to eat it.

Well, that's a harder question.

After all, there were people in town who could use more corn.

There were families struggling to make ends meet.

And there was all this corn just sitting there.

Young fellow began writing about it in the newspaper.

Why should the living sacrifice for some hypothetical future harvest? That got people's attention.

He gave speeches.