BULLETIN No. 183 



EXPERIMENTS IN BREEDING SWEET CORN.* 



By 



Raymond Pearl and Frank M. Surface. 



Introduction. 



The raising of sweet corn for canning purposes constitutes 

 one of the most important of the specialized agricultural inter- 

 ests of Maine. Throughout the central and southern portion 

 of the State sweet corn is the great "ready money" crop. In 

 this section almost every town has its "corn shop" or "fac- 

 tory" and some places can boast of two or three. 



The present magnitude and financial importance of the sweet 

 corn growing and packing industry in the State is probably 

 primarily due to the superior quality of Maine grown corn. 

 "Maine sweet corn" justly holds a high reputation for flavor. 

 To such an extent is this the case that before the advent of the 

 Pure Food Law the labelling of corn grown in other states as 

 "Maine grown" was very common indeed. 



Some idea of the amount of sweet corn annually grown and 

 packed within the State may be gained from the following fig- 

 ures, furnished by the National Canners' Association for the 

 1908 sv/eet corn pack of the country. While not official, these 

 statistics probably fairly represent the general relations. 



State Cases 



Iowa 1,085,000 



Maryland 1,010,000 



Maine 970,000 



Ohio 933,000 



Illinois 856,000 



New York 620.000 



* Papers from tlic Biological Laboratory of the IMaine E-xperiment 

 Station, No. iS. 



