THE VEGETABLES OF NEW YORK 



England Farmer, Aug. 3, 1822, it is said ' a writer in 

 the Plymouth paper asserts that sweet corn was not 

 known in New England until a gentleman of that place, 

 who was in Gen. Sullivan's expedition against the 

 Indians in 1779, brought a few ears to Plymouth, which 

 he found among the Indians on the border of the Sus- 

 quehannah.' A writer the following September adds 

 that this sweet corn was brought by Lieut. Richard 

 Bagnal from Gen. Sullivan's expedition against the Six 

 Nations in 1779 and was called papoon corn. ' That 

 was the first of the species ever seen here, and has since 

 that time been more and more diffused; and, I believe 

 within a few years only, has undergone some change 

 since it was first introduced — then the core was a 

 bright crimson, and after being boiled and the corn taken 

 off, if the corn was laid in contact with any linen, it 

 communicated an indelible stain.' This inconvenience 

 has disappeared. This species, also, like what is dis- 

 tinguished by the appellation of southern, or flat corn, 

 by repeated plantings here, assimilates it to our local 

 corn — " 



" Sweet corn is not referred to by Jefferson in his 

 ' Notes on Virginia,' 1781; nor by McMahon, 1806; nor 

 by Gardiner and Hepburn, 1818; nor by Thorburn, 1817; 

 nor by Randolph, 1818; nor by Fessenden, 1828. The 

 seed catalog of Thorburn, 1828, offers one variety, the 

 Sugar, or Sweet. In 1801 Bordley mentions the ' sweet 

 corn, having a white, shrivelled grain when ripe ' as 

 yielding richer juice in the stalks than common corn. 

 In 1832 ' sweet or sugar ' corn was mentioned among 

 garden vegetables by Bridgeman." 



A study of the literature covering the food crops of 

 the American Indian indicates the limited number of 

 forms which could have reached the hands of our early 

 farmers. If the white-kerneled, red-cobbed form carried 

 from the fields of the Susquehannah to Plymouth in 

 1779 was the first sweet corn known to the settlers, then 

 all named varieties have originated within the last 150 

 years. 



The writings of the early explorers do not give 

 specific mention to sweet corns. In their study Corn 

 Among the Indians of the Upper Missouri, Will and 

 Hyde listed 104 named varieties of corn. These repre- 

 sented the cultivated sorts known to 14 or more tribes 

 of that region. Four of these were sweet corn and 

 included a 10-rowed variety grown by the Mandans, 

 the seed of which was colored red-brown when hard and 

 dry; a 10- to 16-rowed yellow sugar corn cultivated by 

 the Pawnees; and a 14-rowed cream colored or very 

 light yellow sweet corn grown by the Ponkas. The 

 only white sort mentioned was the Iroquois Sweet Puck- 

 ered which was included in a number of varieties coming 

 from the Onondaga Reservation in New York State. 



Scattered Corn, an elderly Mandan matron, whose 

 father was the last Mandan corn priest and who herself 

 is an excellent gardener, says that the varieties raised 

 by her family were soft white, soft yellow, and wrinkled 

 corn. The wrinkled type was a sweet corn of a brown- 

 ish red color when ripe and hard and of a very good 



flavor when green. This may have been the original 

 of the variety Nuetta now grown in the northern plains 

 section. 



Two varieties of sweet corn are given by Parker 

 in the list of forms grown by the Iroquois, Sweet or 

 puckered and Black Sweet or black puckers. The 

 first named might well have been the variety carried to 

 Massachusetts by Lieut. Bagnal while the latter probably 

 was an early form of our present day Black Mexican. 

 What part these varieties played and when and how 

 they found their way into the hands of the early settlers 

 of New York may never be known. The last 50 years 

 of the past century brought forth the gradual develop- 

 ment of varietal nomenclature, as the total number of 

 named varieties known during the fore part of the century 

 possibly did not exceed 10. 



In 1848 Salisbury, 1 who was awarded a premium of 

 $300 by the New York State Agricultural Society for an 

 essay on maize or Indian corn, says, " There are several 

 sub- varieties as the Small Early Sweet, the Rhode 

 Island Sweet, the Hematite Sweet, and a new variety 

 made by crossing the Sweet with the Early Canada." 



The Hematite Sweet, having white kernels and a 

 red cob, is described as smaller than Rhode Island Sweet 

 but larger than Early Sweet. The ears were 8-rowed 

 and well filled. The other two varieties had white 

 kernels and white cobs, the ears of Small Early Sweet 

 being 8- to 10-rowed and from 3 to 6 inches long and 

 those of Rhode Island Sweet 8-rowed and 5 to 8 inches 

 long. The fourth variety mentioned, the yellow cross, 

 is one of the first recorded " hybrid " sweet corns. Both 

 of the parents were 8-rowed, the flinty Canada Yellow 

 giving the yellow color and the Early Sweet the sweet 

 character. The date when this cross was made is not 

 given, but since its existence was recorded in 1848 it 

 must have originated sometime before that date. Until 

 1902, when Golden Bantam was introduced, yellow sweet 

 corn was largely considered as unfit for use. Early 

 Adams, a variety destitute of the corneous portion of 

 the seed, was also mentioned. The kernels were 

 described as having a shrivelled and dull appearance. 

 This differs from the kernel characteristics of the Adams 

 Early grown today. 



From the Magazine of Horticulture of December 

 1850, the rise of another new variety can be followed. 

 The account is rendered by the Rev. A. R. Pope of 

 Somerville, Massachusetts, who carefully related the 

 steps, beginning in 1845 and ending in 1850, incident 

 I to the introduction of the new variety which he named 

 Old Colony, a name for that part of New England near 

 Kingston, Massachusetts. " As soon as the pistils 

 or silk [of Southern White] seemed in a mature state 

 the opening stamens of sweet corn stalks were carefully 

 brought, and the pollen from them gently shaken upon 

 the pistils. ... At the time of harvesting, more 

 than one-half of the kernels bore all the ordinary out- 

 ward appearances of sweet corn and had the sweetness 

 peculiar to that variety, but taking the shape and size 

 I natural to the cob on which they were grown." Speci- 



Salisbury, J. H. Maize, or Indian corn. Trans. N. Y. State Agr. Soc., 678-845. 1848. 



