150 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



the Plymouth Society; from whom was received the following 

 reply :— 



"Wishing to compare, in respect to shrinkage, the variety of 

 Indian corn known in this vicinity as the ' Whitman corn/ or 

 ' smutty white/ as it is sometimes called, — a kind to which 

 some farmers here appear to he very partial, — with that 

 of an eight-rowed yellow which I had raised for a number of 

 years, I procured for the purpose, some of the former from Mr. 

 Calvin Lcavitt, of Bridgewater. The ears sent me by Mr. 

 Leavitt were from a crop raised by him, in 1852, for which he 

 had taken, that year, the first premium ; and of which the yield, 

 as reported by Mr. H. Collamore, then supervisor of the Ply- 

 mouth County Agricultural Society, was one hundred and 

 twenty-two bushels to the acre. From the sample received, 

 (fine looking corn it was,) I shelled, on the 10th January, 1853, 

 eight quarts, which weighed at that time fourteen pounds and 

 four ounces, being at the rate of fifty-seven pounds to the 

 bushel. I also, at the same time, shelled from some ears raised 

 the same season, and taken from the crib, an equal number of 

 quarts of the aforesaid yellow, — a handsome, although not, I 

 presume, an unusual variety, with large kernels, which, how- 

 ever, were not so large as were those of the smutty white. 

 These weighed fifteen pounds and eight ounces, being at the 

 rate of sixty-two pounds to the bushel. 



" The several parcels were then spread upon the floor of an 

 upper loft in my corn-house, where they remained securely until 

 the 21st April following; — when, on being again weighed, the 

 smutty white gave twelve pounds and eight ounces, and the 

 yellow fourteen pounds and twelve ounces. The first having 

 lost, in weight, from the 10th January to 21st April, one pound 

 and twelve ounces, being at the rate of seven pounds to the 

 bushel ; and the other, twelve ounces, being at the rate of three 

 pounds to the bushel. 



" The trial, I am sensible, was begun too late in this case, and 

 conducted upon too limited a scale to prove as satisfactory as 

 it otherwise might have been. But the facts which appear to 

 be disclosed seem to deserve attention, and to be of a nature 

 requiring a farther and more thorough investigation of the sub- 

 ject, going to show, as they do, substantially, that of two crops 



