252 MAINE AGRICULTURAI, EXPERIMENT STATION. 191O. 



This is all that it was hoped or expected to do. The Station 

 cannot enter upon the commercial breeding of improved sweet 

 corn seed. It can only point out methods by which such breed- 

 ing may be done by others. 



It is the purpose of this bulletin to give a brief account of 

 the general features of the experiments carried on during the 

 past three years in sweet corn breeding. Further discussion 

 of the technically scientific results of this work is reserved for 

 later publication. 



Existing and Desired Types of Sweet Corn in Maine. 



Practically all of the sweet corn grown in Maine for canning 

 purposes belongs to one or the other of two general types. 

 Representative strains of these two types are grown under dif- 

 ferent names in different localities. We have accordingly come 

 to pay little attention to the varietal names of sweet corn, in 

 this work. The two main types under which the corn may be 

 grouped are characterized in the following way: 



Type I. — A pure white corn, with small kernels closely packed 

 on the cob. The number of rows varies from 14 to 22, with an 

 average of i6 to i8. The corn makes a rapid growth and ma- 

 tures relatively early. The stalks, on good land and in a good 

 season, will vary from 5 to 6 feet in height, with an average of 

 from 5 to 5^ feet. The yield of stover is only fairly good, but 

 the yield of ears is usually very good. The ears are shorter 

 than in the case of Type II, and in some strains are well shaped. 

 In other strains the ear, owing to lack of selection probably, 

 tapers very much. Of this type of corn the best is undoubted- 

 ly that produced by the so-called Dennett and Ellis strains. 

 These two strains, which, so far as we are able to discover by 

 study both of the growing corn and of the seed, differ very 

 slightly except in name, have for many years been grown for 

 seed in the region around Brownfield, Me. Accounts differ 

 as to the detailed history of these strains, but all agree that this 

 type of sweet corn came into the Brownfield region many years 

 ^§^0 (15 to 25?) as a small sample of ears. In recent years 

 there has been no inter-mixture of any other type of sweet 

 corn in this region. On the Dennett and the Ellis farms the 

 same seed has been used year after year without any introduc- 

 tion of "new blood," and without any detasseling to insure 



