MAIZE 



MAIZE 



419 



Fig. 643. Popcorn. A, Typical ears 

 of white pearl; B, typical ears of 

 white rice. 



classes may be divided into early, medium and late, 

 and these again into white, yellow, and colored (not 

 yellow). 



All of these varieties cross with each other so 

 readily that it is difficult under ordinary methods 



to keep a vari- 

 ety strictly to 

 any given type. 

 The different va- 

 rieties of both 

 the rice and 

 pearl corn may 

 vary as to color 

 through the 

 several shades 

 of white, amber, 

 yellow, red and 

 black, also red 

 and white 

 striped. 



Some of the 

 best known 

 white rice varieties are the Monarch Rice, Snowball 

 and Egyptian. Of the white pearl varieties, the 

 Common White Pearl, Mapledale Prolific and Non- 

 pareil are standard varieties. Of the yellow pearl 

 varieties, the most valuable are the Queen Golden 

 and Dwarf Golden, each of which has a yellowish 

 color when popped and has the taste peculiar to 

 yellow corn. The black varieties are grown only 

 in a small way as novelties, and the same may be 

 said of the Golden Tom Thumb, which is a dwarf 

 yellow variety that is so small that it has no 

 value except as a curiosity. 



Two typical varieties or groups may be described 

 as follows (Illinois Experiment Station, Bulletin 

 No. 13): White rice: Stalk 7 to 8 feet high, 

 rather short- jointed, leafy, dark green ; tassel long, 

 slender, with few branches, drooping ; suckers 

 many, growing to about half the size of the parent 

 stalk ; very few husk blades. Ear 3 to 5 feet from 

 the ground, strongly tapering, dull white, with a 

 white cob 5 to 7 inches long, 1.3 to 1.75 inches in 

 diameter ; cob .65 to .8 inches thick ; kernels 

 rounded over the butt of the ear and usually filling 

 out the tips ; rows of kernels fourteen to twenty, 

 regular pairs of rows not very distinct'. Kernel 

 pointed, the tip being continued into a spine which 

 is either depressed or nearly erect, .15 to .2 inches 

 wide, .3 to .35 inches deep. White rice corn was 

 ripe enough to cut in 132 days from planting. A 

 single plot yielded in 1889 at the rate of 86.3 

 bushels per acre. This differs from Monarch rice 

 in having a shorter ear with a greater number of 

 rows of kernels, and the kernels more slender. 



White pearl : Stalk 7 to 8h feet high, rather 

 large ; blades large, dark green ; tassel long, with 

 few branches, drooping; suckers many, reaching 

 about three-fourths of the size of the parent stalk. 

 Ear 3.5 to 4.5 feet from the ground, nearly cylin- 

 drical, clear white, with a white cob 6 to 8 inches 

 long, 1 to 1.4 inches in diameter ; cob .55 to .65 

 inches through ; kernels even at the butt ; tip 

 usually well filled ; rows of kernels ten to fourteen, 

 regular. Kernel .2 inches broad, .25 inches deep, 



very smooth, somewhat flattened over the top. One 

 plot of white pearl with 88 per cent of a full stand 

 yielded forty-one pounds of ears, or at the rate of 

 46.1 bushels per acre. The ears are long, slender 

 and smooth. It diifers from the common white in 

 having longer and more slender ears and in making 

 a much smaller growth of stalk. It was ripe enough 

 to cut in 125 days from planting. 



Culture. 



Soil. — Any well-drained fertile soil, except a 

 low peat or muck soil, is suitable for the growth 

 of popcorn. A muck soil usually has an excess of 

 nitrogen during the warm weather in the latter part 

 of the season, which tends to cause too much 

 growth of stalks at the expense of well-developed 

 ears. This, of course, can be overcome to some 

 extent by liberal applications of potassic and phos- 

 phatic fertilizers, which will furnish the plant a 

 better balanced food-supply ; but since this ten- 

 dency to run largely to stalk is general with pop- 

 corn under the best conditions of fertility, it is 

 obvious that planting it on muck soil would in- 

 crease the fault. 



Fertilizers. — Whether the soil is sand, gravel, 

 loam or clay, it must have a sufficient quantity of 

 available plant-food elements to give the best re- 

 sults. In furnishing any or all of these, one should 

 remember that they are not needed to grow any 

 specific crop, but rather to overcome deficiencies 

 of available plant-food in that particular type of 

 soil. All of these types of soil are usually lacking 

 in available nitrogen unless well supplied with 

 humus, and it should be supplied in large applica- 

 tions of organic matter, either in stable manure or 

 by the use of cover-crops ; and even then there will 

 be a deficiency of available nitrogen early in the 

 season, which should be supplied by a broadcast 

 top-dressing of nitrate of soda, at the rate of one 

 hundred to two hundred pounds per acre. The 

 application is made when the corn is two or three 

 inches high. 



For best results, the mineral elements, phosphorus 

 and potassium, should also be applied at the rate 

 of 400 pounds of acid phosphate (14 per cent avail- 

 able) and 100 pounds of sulfate of potash (50 per 

 cent actual) per acre ; these to be mixed together 

 and drilled into the soil with the fertilizer drill 

 three or four inches deep before planting. 



Seed. — In the growing of popcorn on a commer- 

 cial scale, the selection of seed has more to do with 

 success or failure than any other one factor. It is 

 said that a man is the sum of his ancestors, and so 

 is every plant that is propagated by means of a 

 seed. It is not enough that we go through the 

 field when the corn is ripe and select ears for seed 

 from fine, healthy, productive individual stalks ; we 

 must try to guard against the possible chance that 

 any of the kernels on the ear which we select for 

 seed could have been fertilized with pollen-grains 

 from the tassel of another plant that may be either 

 poorly developed or entirely barren. In other 

 words, we must breed up our seed corn to the special 

 type best suited to our needs, for the same reason 

 that we breed our animals for special purposes; 



