BEST VARIETIES OF SWEET CORN. 397 
to customers in the best condition. The sooner it is used after picking the 
better the flavor. Many market. gardeners practice gathering their corn 
the evening before taking it to market. That is a bad practice. It should 
invariably be gathered on the morning of the day it is used and not later 
than the middle of the forenoon. If families are supplied with fresh early 
morning picked corn delivered to them before the heating or sweating pro- 
cess begins, they will use more of it and be better satisfied with it. 
There is quite a knack in eating sweet corn. The only way to get full 
satisfaction out of green corn is to have it boiled just done and steaming 
hot, and then gnawing it from the cob, smearing it with prime dairy butter 
as the gnawing progresses. Although this operation is not an elegant one 
to witness, it is performed even at the best ordered tables. I believe the 
latest fad is to thrust a silver green corn handle into the large end of the cob 
to handle it by. The operation is much facilitated by drawing a sharp knife 
lengthwise in the center of each row in such a manner that each kernel will 
be split in half. When this is done the digestible and nutritious contents 
of the kernels will slip out and the often tough hull be left upon the cob, 
and the eater will call out for ‘‘another ear, please.” 
My choice of varieties is for earliest extra early corn, Crosby’s 
Early, Early Minnesota; for medium early: White Champion, Moore’s Early 
Concord, Black Mexican; for main crop and late: The Country Gentleman, 
Henderson, Ne Plus Ultra, or Shoofly, and Stowell’s Evergreen, The Coun- 
try Gentleman, Ne Plus Ultra, and the genuine Stowell’s Evergreen are my 
favorites for main crop. The Mammoth will do to sell by the ton to canning 
factories. 
PROTECTION AGAINST ROOT-KILLING. 
C. WEDGE, ALBERT LEA. 
(Read before the So. Minnesota Horticultural Society in February, 1900.) 
In that portion of our country west of Lake Michigan and north. of 
Missouri there is no menace more constantly hanging over the fruit in. 
terests of the country than that of root-killing. We had a severe and em- 
phatic lesson in this matter during the winter of ’99, but on account of a 
heavy protection of snow at the time the thermometer indicated the greatest 
degree of cold we did not fare as badly as our Wisconsin and south lowa 
brethren, who, with their orchards and nurseries bare and fully exposed 
to a temperature of 35 degrees below zero, suffered as severe losses as have 
been known since the first settlement of the country. 
The study of the conditions that favor root-killing and the best methods 
of preventing has really but just begun; but it is quite generally agreed 
that a dry soil in connection with deep and severe freezing is a condition 
that is quite certain to cause a long list of “‘casualties.” However, with the 
temperature that we had last winter (1898-9) it seemed to matter little what 
the condition of the soil happened to;be if the snow were blown off and 
the earth fully exposed; the moist, low places suffering fully as much as the 
dry exposed hillsides. 
While we do not as yet fully understand the position of our enemy, and 
have not mastered the details of a perfect defence against his tactics, and 
while we have some very weak spots in our line that we scarcely know how 
to cover, we have worked out some methods of fortification, and discovered 
