292 Transactions of the American Institute. 



of the year ; it averages nine to ten feet in height. In this section of 

 the country, out of every hundred acres in cultivation, eighty acres 

 of it are in corn. There was but little winter wheat sown here last 

 fall, as it has been generally supposed that winter wheat would not do 

 well here on account of its winter killing, but it has not winter killed 

 for the last three years. It ripened this season too early for the chinch 

 bugs to damage it seriously. So far as heard from, the yield is excel- 

 lent, being from twenty-five to thirty bushels per acre. There will 

 be 200 per cent more sown here this fall than last, and I think that 

 next season there will be a corresponding decrease of the acreage of 

 spring wheat sown. Potatoes also look fine and promise a large yield. 



Large Early Corn. 



Mr. C. C. Cooley, of Manchester, Ohio, forwarded two ears of corn 

 with the following letter: I send you by express a sack of meal 

 made from the present season's crop of corn, ground on the 

 9th of August. This is undoubtedly the earliest large field 

 corn in the United States. I will give you its history. Some 

 fourteen years since I received a small ear of eight-rowed corn 

 (early Minnesota, I think). I planted it, for roasting ears, near a 

 field of large white corn. The large corn intermixed with it. I saved 

 the largest ears for seed ; I planted it as before by the side of the large 

 corn. That year I noticed a great difference in the size of the ears, 

 some of the ears having ten to twelve rows. So I again saved the 

 largest and best ears for seed, and have been doing so from year to 

 year, so that I have succeeded in producing a corn that will yield as 

 much to the acre as any variety of large corn. The ears are long, 

 with twelve to eighteen rows. It can be fed to stock by the 1st of 

 August, or can be shelled and made into meal, or sold in the market 

 by the 15th of August, while the common field corn in this neighbor- 

 hood is not hard enough to grind before the 10th of October, making 

 this corn at least two months earlier than any other variety. I send 

 you two ears of corn planted May 3 ; they speak for themselves. 



I am cultivating this corn on the Manchester island, where it has 

 no chance of mixing with other varieties. This goes to show that, if 

 as much attention was paid to the improvement of corn as there is 

 given to wheat, fruit, hogs, etc., a hundred million bushels might be 

 added to the annual crop. The land on which this corn is raised is 

 good, but has never been manured ; it has been in cultivation a great 

 number of years. I plant the corn three by three and a half feet, 

 and allow three to five stocks to the hill. 



