124 The Plant World. 



growing of sweet corn for seed, discussing the first influence of 

 location on quality. 



The qualities of sweetness and tenderness, as well as earli- 

 nessof maturity, in green corn are influenced by soil and climatic 

 conditions, but there is a dift'erence of opinion as to how far 

 this influence is carried in the seed. The corn packers of Maine 

 insist that green corn grown in the north from northern-grown 

 seed is superior to that which can be produced from seed grown 

 farther south. The ^Maryland packers insist that they can get 

 not only more but sweeter and more tender corn from seed grown 

 in their own locailty. In both cases the superior results obtained 

 from local grown seed may be accounted for from the fact that 

 seed grown in any locality for a number of generations has been 

 found by experimentation to give better results in that locality 

 than seed of the same stock equally well grown elsewhere. 



If we carefully select ears grown from eastern and from 

 western seed which are in exactly the same stage of maturity, 

 chemical analysis fails to detect and constant difference in sugar 

 content. There is, however, a slight, but discernible, difference 

 in the size of chit, or germ, and in a general way the green corn 

 from western seed is slightly coarser in texture and less t.^nder 

 than that from eastern seed. The difference in qualitv mav be 

 accounted for as follows: 



The climatic conditions in the western corn-growing sections, 

 esjjecially during the season when corn is earing, are often such 

 as to induce a marvellously rapid development — much more 

 rapid than is usually seen in the east. In the West it is some- 

 times difficult to find ears of sweet corn green enough to be in 

 prime boiling condition in fields where it was difficult to lind 

 ears which were mature enough to be palatable forty-eight to 

 seventy-two hours earlier. Seed grown under such conditions 

 would often transmit the rapid-maturing habit of the plants that 

 jiroduce it. The quality of green corn, particularly as to tender- 

 ness and sweetness, is very dependent upon the stage of maturity 

 at which it is cooked, sometimes the growth of only a few hours 

 affecting the discernible sugar content. If the corn in a field 

 from western seed in which the rapid- maturing habit was trans- 

 mitted was gathered for canning when most of the ears were in 

 prime green-corn condition, some of the ears would be so mature 



