848 



CORN 



CORN 



Sweet corn (Zea saccharata, Sturt.). Figs. 1058-1060. 

 This is a well-defined species-group, characterized 

 by horny, more or less crinkled, wrinkled or shriveled 

 kernels, having a semi-transparent or translucent 

 appearance. Sturteyant, in 1899, lists sixty-one dis- 

 tinct varieties. He gives the first variety of sweet corn 

 recorded in American cultivation as being introduced 

 into the region about Plymouth, Massachusetts, from 

 the Indians of the Susquehanna in 1779. Schenck, in 

 1854, knew two varieties. It appears, therefore, that 

 the distribution of sweet corn into cultivation made 

 little progress prior to the last half of the nineteenth 

 century, green field corn having largely occupied its 

 place prior to that period. 



Sweet corn is preeminently a garden vegetable, 

 although the large kinds are sometimes grown for silage 

 or stover. As a garden vegetable, it is used when it 

 has reached the "roasting ear" stage, the kernel then 

 being well filled and plump but soft, and "in the milk." 

 The kernel is the only part used for human food. When 

 sweet corn is used as a fresh vegetable, it is often 

 cooked and served on the cob. Dried sweet corn, 

 though never an important article of commerce, was 

 formerly much used, especially by the rural popula- 

 tion. It is gradually being generally abandoned for 

 canned corn, for other cereal preparations or for other 

 vegetables, but recently desiccated corn has been put 

 upon the market and is finding sale in certain districts, 

 particularly in the South and in mining and lumber 

 camps. It is practically unknown outside North 

 America. 



In the last quarter of the last century, canned sweet 

 corn came to be an important article of domestic com- 

 merce in the United States and Canada. The total pack 

 for the United States and Canada for the year 1898 was 

 4,398,563 cases, each containing two dozen two-pound 

 tins. The following statement shows the number of 

 cases packed for the United States for the five-year 

 period from 1907 to 1911: 



1907 .. 6,653,744 



1908 6,779,000 



1909 5,787,000 



1910 10,063,000 



1911 14,301,000 



Comparatively little of this corn was sent abroad, 

 most of it being consumed in the States, Canada, and 

 Alaska. In 1911 Iowa took first rank in the output of 

 canned corn with a pack of 2,774,000 cases, which was 

 nearly 20 per cent of the total output of the United 

 States for that year. Illinois, New York, Maryland, 

 Maine, Ohio, and Indiana followed in the order named. 

 These seven states packed about 88 per cent of the 

 total output of this country in 1911. These figures are 

 the best obtainable and give a general idea of the prog- 

 ress and distribution of the corn-canning industry. 

 Maine produces as good canned corn as is put on the 

 market and grows the crop largely in localities having 

 too short a season to mature the seed. 



Sweet corn is commonly grown for canneries under 

 contract, the canning company supplying the seed 

 and guaranteeing it to be good and true to name, while 

 the farmer agrees to grow a certain specified acreage 

 and deliver the whole crop to the cannery at a stipula- 

 ted price. In Iowa the price now paid the grower is 

 about $7 per ton of good ears. A yield of three to four 

 tons to the acre is considered good. The ears are 

 snapped from the stalks with the husks on and hauled 

 in deep wagon-boxes to the canneries. The stalks, 

 when preserved either as ensilage or as stover, make 

 excellent fodder. The overripe and inferior ears, being 

 unmarketable, are left on the stalks and thereby 

 materially increase their value, as a stock food. The 

 stover keeps best in loose shocks, as it is liable to mold 

 when closely packed in large stacks or bays. 



As a field crop, sweet corn is grown most extensively 



on medium heavy loams that are well supplied with 

 humus or organic matter. It luxuriates in rich warm 

 soils. The crop rotation should be planned so as to 

 use the coarse manures with the corn, which is a gross 

 feeder. On the more fertile lands of the central corn- 

 belt, nitrogenous manures may not always be used to 

 advantage with corn, but in the eastern and southern 

 states, where the soil has lost more of its original fer- 

 tility, stable manure may often be used profitably with 

 this crop at the rate of 8 or 10 cords to the acre, or 

 possibly more. 



In the northern part of the corn-belt in the central 

 and western states, that is to say north of the Ohio and 

 Missouri rivers, deep fall plowing of corn land is gen- 

 erally favored, but in experiments at the Illinois and 

 Indiana experiment stations, the depth of plowing 

 has had little influence on the crop. In sections of the 

 eastern states, shallow plowing late in spring is favored, 

 especially if the land be in sod. In warmer, drier regions, 

 as in parts of Nebraska and Kansas, listing has been 

 much practised on stubble ground. The listing plow, 

 having a double mold-board, throws the soil into alter- 

 nate furrows and ridges, the furrows being 8 or 9 



1059. Early Marblehead sweet corn. 



inches deeper than the tops of the ridges. The corn is 

 planted in the bottom of the furrow, either by means 

 of a one-horse corn-drill or by a corn-drill attachment 

 to the lister plow, consisting of a subsoil plow through 

 the hollow leg of which the corn is dropped. 



Great care should be used to secure seed-corn having 

 high vitality as a precaution against the rotting or 

 weak germination of the seed in the soil, should the 

 season be cold and wet after planting. Select the seed- 

 ears early before any hard frosts have come. At this 

 time the large, early, and well-matured ears can be dis- 

 tinguished from the rest of the crop, as the husks about 

 the early-maturing ears will have started to turn brown. 

 Early maturity is a vital point to consider in selecting 

 seed-ears and this quality should never be sacrificed for 

 the size of late unmatured ears. In selecting seed for a 

 field crop, seek systematically for stalks having little 

 or no growth of stools and bearing single, large, and 

 early-maturing ears. For garden use, seed from more 

 productive stalks is desirable, even though the ears be 

 smaller. The seed-ears should be dried at once by 

 artificial heat so that the seed may better withstand 

 unfavorable conditions of temperature or moisture. In 

 many localities so-called kiln-dried seed is much in 

 favor. 



In the North, sweet corn should be planted as early 

 as can be done without involving great risk of loss from 

 frosts or from rotting of seed in the soil. In New York, 

 field-planting is generally done from May 10 to May 

 20; in central Minnesota from May 10 to May 30. 

 The ground having been plowed and prepared so as to 

 make a seed-bed of fine, loose soil 3 inches deep> the 

 seed should be planted to a depth of 1 to 3 inches. 

 The drier and looser the soil, the greater should be the 

 depth of planting. In planting small fields, the ground 

 may be marked in check-rows so that the hills planted 



