SECRETARY'S REPORT. 75 



giving the buckwheat meal a lighter color, and otherwise 

 improving it. 



In Virginia is foimd tlie Tappahannock or Rouzie corn, the 

 result of experiments for thirty-two years ; it is said to give 

 more to the acre and more meal to the bushel, than others, 

 even as much as one-third more. Its cob is red, and the fangs 

 of the kernel so tinged. It is said the red cob corn matures 

 more rapidly and perfectly than the white in that neighborhood. 

 It is there planted the first of April. 



The Wyandotte corn, first introduced in 1853, by I. R. Thomas, 

 of Waverly, Illinois, who got it from the Wyandotte Indians, is 

 pearl white, and the meal white as wheat flour, large grain, 

 shaped like the yellow flint, soft, twelve-rowed, small cob, 

 twelve to fifteen inches long. It requires but one grain in a 

 hill, more is useless ; five feet each way is near enough ; per- 

 haps it may, on some lands, be planted closer ; 2,500 hills, or 

 one quart of seed to an acre. Each grain yields from three to 

 eight stalks full grown, each nine to twelve feet high. Each 

 stalk bears from two to four ears, so that each hill or grain 

 produces from eight to twenty ears ; and if only six, — though 

 Mr. Thomas says his field in 1855 averaged ten ears to the hill, — 

 the yield is 15,000 ears, 120 ears to a bushel, and 125 bushels 

 to an acre. By actual measurement, three of the average sized 

 ears of the Wyandotte corn will make one quart of shelled corn ; 

 the largest ears of corn about Albany are mentioned as giving 

 two gills to an ear, and 100 fair ears a half bushel of corn. 

 The accounts of the Wyandotte corn are conflicting. The 

 Indians are said to use it as easily when raised and prepared 

 without a mill ; probably its meal will not keep, or do for 

 shipping, as it is almost destitute of oil, and is too tasteless for 

 bread. But others say it yields 8,960 grains from a single 

 kernel. 



This matter of varieties is one of the most important in the 

 economy of Indian corn, and we earnestly desire that any one 

 having well-defined varieties, of which he knows the history 

 and qualities, the analysis, ripening, cultivation or yield, 

 in blades, stalk, cob, grain, ear, or height, earliness, hardi- 

 ness, or any peculiarities and locality, will send a specimen, 

 with a particular and full account of all he knows about it, to 

 the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture at the 



