1910 . 
THE RUKAI> NEW-YORKER 
1109 
THE NEW ENGLAND CORN SHOW. 
History Framed in Corn. 
Part I. 
The New England Corn Show at 
Worcester, Mass., was a great success. 
There was a fine exhibit of corn and 
many New England farmers came to 
study it. I suppose there is no man in 
the country who knows more about judg¬ 
ing corn than Prof. Holden, of Iowa. 
He told me that there were ears of corn 
at this show which would score higher 
than most of the prize ears at Western 
shows. It might be a little difficult to 
compare a flint with a dent ear exactly, 
but as specimens of good seed ears this 
Yankee corn was at the top. “It ought 
to be,” said Prof. Holden. “Some of this 
corn has really been selected or bred for 
250 years, while the Western dents may 
not be over 40 years old.” That is where 
the New England corn grower has one 
advantage. Some of these flint varieties 
have been selected by farmers of several 
generations on the same farm. Grand¬ 
father, father and- son have selected the 
corn which suited them for their soil, 
and thus the corn breeders have started 
with seed which carried a gilt-edge pedi¬ 
gree. Prof. Holden illustrated his point 
by showing how the husk is attached 
to these flint varieties. As all know who 
have handled them, there is a strong 
bulge at the butt of the ear, and the 
husks seem to be riveted on. That is 
largely due to selection. The favorite 
way of saving seed was to braid the 
husks and hang up a bunch of ears to¬ 
gether. Thus the ears which had the 
tough husks and the firmest grip on the 
stalks would be selected, and such selec¬ 
tion going on year after year would not 
only affect the character of the grain, 
but the cob and husk. The Western 
dent corn is differently fastened to the 
stalk or husk, and for much the same 
reason. In the West much of the corn 
has been husked or harvested without 
cutting the stalk. A man will go through 
the field by the side of a wagon, simply 
snapping off the ears and throwing them 
into the wagon box—leaving the stalk 
to stand. Thus it was an advantage to 
have the ears break away from husk 
and stalk readily, and perhaps uncon¬ 
sciously selection of seed ears was made 
with this idea in view. It was the re¬ 
verse of the selection of flints, where 
tough husks and cob handle were 
wanted. This simple illustration shows 
how definite characters may be fixed by 
selection. Many of the strains of corn 
at this show were so well fixed in gen¬ 
eral habit that a careful young man could 
take any ear in the exhibition and by 
thorough culture and wise selection make 
in five years an improved strain that will 
give remarkable results. 
That is one way in which the New 
England corn grower has a great ad¬ 
vantage, aside from the great acreage 
value of the crop, as we shall show later. 
This was proved by Perley E. Davis, 
who won the grand Bowker prize of 
$500 for best yield on an acre. Mr. 
Davis took a strain of Longfellow corn, 
and selected the seed through several 
generations until he now has a dark yel¬ 
low flint, the ears averaging about nine 
inches in length, with the entire tips 
covered with good kernels. With this 
corn Mr. Davis grew 127 bushels of 
shelled grain on a measured acre, as it 
came from the field. Mr. W. H. Bowker, 
who offered the prize, made a new test. 
The yield from the acre was weighed, 
but only the “crib-dry” weight could 
complete for the prize. “Crib-dry” means 
corn containing only 12 per cent of mois¬ 
ture. To figure this 50 pounds of ears 
were taken and weighed at time of har¬ 
vest. Then these ears were air-dried, 
weighed again, shelled and the propor¬ 
tion of grain to cob figured. This shelled 
corn was then sent to the Massachusetts 
Experiment Station and analyzed, and 
the yield figured on the basis of 12 per 
cent moisture. This was a hard test, 
but the corn gave 103.23 bushels of crib- 
dry corn. Under this exacting test Mr. 
Davis’s yield is a record. 
You will understand that this result 
was not reached by simply turning over 
some old pasture and giving ordinary 
cultivation. I am sure that some of 
these flints will give more food per acre 
under this rough culture than any other 
grain, but they are also capable of re¬ 
sponding to the finest possible culture 
and feeding. Mr. Davis used 1900 
pounds of corn fertilizer per acre. The 
seed was planted in drills three feet 
apart, and with one kernel every eight 
or 10 inches. Missing plants were filled 
in by transplanting, so as to make a 
perfect stand, and all weeds and suckers 
were kept out. We shall give some fur¬ 
ther details about this crop before plant¬ 
ing time, but first let us look at the 
money side of it. This crib-dry corn 
will sell for feeding at $1.10 per bushel. 
That means $113.55 for the grain alone— 
not for seed, but in competition with 
grain which made only 40 bushels per 
acre. The fodder will sell for at least 
$15 more. Now, where is the acre of 
corn in Iowa, Illinois or other corn¬ 
growing States that will give $130 in¬ 
come? If you say that the acre of west¬ 
ern corn does not need the ton of fer¬ 
tilizer and the hand work of culture, we 
can say leave out the cost, and still the 
acre of Massachusetts corn will out- 
profit the western acre by more than 50 
per cent. That is because these flint 
varieties are heavier yielders, because 
the selling price of corn is greater, and 
because the fodder has a good selling 
value. There is no disputing the fact 
that Mr. Davis’s record is genuine. Now 
let any western farmer who has ever 
won such a prize come forward and show 
what his acre’s product actually sold for! 
What I am getting at is the fact that 
this corn exhibition proves what we have 
claimed for years, that $50 land in the 
East can be made to earn a greater profit 
than $150 western land—at growing 
corn. Another value of the flint varieties 
is the superior quality of the fodder. In 
parts of New England this dry fodder 
is worth as much for horse feeding as 
good hay. In fact there are cases where 
the fodder alone from an acre will bring 
as much as 40 bushels of grain in the 
western fields. This being so I asked 
Prof. Holden why in judging corn fairly 
we should not take the entire stalk and 
consider the fodder as well as the grain. 
I think this plan or something like it will 
finally be adopted. As for Mr. Davis, 
he is a quiet, well-educated man, who 
grows the corn, does no blowing or 
shouting about it, and says openly that 
the greatest credit belongs to his wife! 
I believe that Mr. Davis in making this 
corn record has done more for Massa¬ 
chusetts than any Governor who has oc¬ 
cupied the State House since the Civil 
War. Next week I want to speak of 
some other features of this corn show. 
h. w. c. 
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A Message 
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