CORN. 



141 



small way by cooking and then cutting- it from the cob and 

 drying it in the sun. oven or evaporator. It is also preserved 

 in brine by first cooking it and then treating the same as 

 recommended for cucumber pickles. It may also be cut from 

 the cob- after cooking and packed in a vessel in layers alter, 

 nating with salt, using about seven pounds of salt to a bushel 

 of kernels. 



Cutting off the Tassels. It has been recommended to cut off 

 half of the tassels from the young corn, on the ground that 

 one-half the tassels would produce all the pollen needed by all 

 the kernels. While some experiments have shown this to be 

 true. many other experiments show there is little if anything to 

 be gained by the practice. 



Insects. Corn is quite free from serious injury, either from 

 insects or diseases. The most injurious insects are the cut 

 worm and boll worm, for discussion of which see chapter on 

 insects. 



Smut( Ustilago Maydis)is almost the only disease seriously 

 injurious to corn. It is a fungous disease that works in almost 



any part of the plant, 

 causing swellings which 

 contain black spores. 

 When ripe, the swellings 

 burst and the spores are 

 scattered to continue the 

 disease another year. 

 There can be no question 

 but that gathering and 

 destroying the bunches of 

 spores by burning or bu- 

 rying them deeply in the 

 ground would result in 

 Fig. 71.— Corn smut. (Ustilago Maydis.) greatly lessening the loss 

 from this cause. It is, however, such an expensive remedy 

 as to seem almost impracticable. Some experiments seem to 

 show that soaking the seed in a solution of sulphate of copper 

 may assist in preventing this trouble in corn as well as smut in 

 wheat, but other experiments apparently prove the contrary, 

 and it may be taken as a doubtful matter at the best. Prac- 

 tically, then, we know of no sure remedy for smut in corn. 



