Evening star., 1960-08-15
The
Rambler
Adds q
Footnote to History
. Adds q
BY GEORGE KENNEDY

Our national existence has
been so eventful and ex-
perienced on such a big con-
tinent that many important
items have been passed over
by our historians.
One of these is a little
journey that E. L. Coy of
Washington County, N. Y,
made in 1898 to visit a cousin
in Greenfield, Mass.
Greenfield is nearby today,
but in those horse-and-buggy
days 1t was quite a distance.
Washington County, which
lies between the upper waters
of Lake Champlain and the
Vermont border, is not with
out history. Almost go years
before, a lay Baptist preacher
named William Miller had
~left his Washington County
home and almost convinced
the world that the Second
Coming, the Last Judgment
and the end of the world
would occur in October, 1874.
While Mr.. Coy's journey
caused no such stir, it was
more successful. 1t was in
July. His cousin served him
some small yellow ears Of
sweet corn. 1t was the earli-
est and the sweetest corn he
had ever had.
The corn was grown, he
learned, by an elderly man
named ]. G. Pickett. Mr..
Pickett delighted in supply
ing friends with corn for
their table, but would not
give them any of his seed.
Mr.. Coy told his cousin to
get some seed from the old
man at any cost. In the fall
of 1900, he received 2 quarts
of dried yellow kernels from
Greenfield, and he sent them
to the w. Atlee Burpee Co. Of
Philadelphia. In 1902, the
company came out with
Golden Bantam Corn.
What the old man had was
a sport. All our sweet corn
varieties are sports, muta-
tionS of Indian maize.
AT FIRST the yellow ears
met great resistance. People
thought it was the same corn
that is fed to hogs and
chickens.
The writer remembers that
well. AS a boy he peddled
the excess corn from a
garden patch on a western
New York farm-l0 cents a
dozen ears. That was in 1912.
We managed to sell most Of
the people we called on in
the village. They had heard
of it. But the Italian workers
in the canning factory, who
should have been a good
market, would chase us out
of the enclosure of company
shackS, shouting, chicken
corn!"
Today the yellow corn has
almost driven white sweet
corn off the market. 1t is no
longer bantam. Sometimes
the ears are almost as big as
the new hybrid hog corn.
Are they as good as those
old nubbins? I don't know.
Nostalgia has a way of sug-
gesting that the rose of yes
teryear smelled sweeter. But
this I know. Store-bought
corn usually is good. 1t never
was in the old days.
This is due to cooling in
the field. The ears are
plunged into great tubs of ice
water. This keeps the milk
and the sugar in the kernels
from turning into starch.
1 had a talk yesterday with
the vegetable buyer of a
chain of supermarkets. He
almost convinced me that
corn has no season.
That doesn't seem right.
What is the point of the
fitting of the earth in its
annual orbit around the sun
if it is not to cause seasons,
fresh garden peas in May,
pie cherries in June, tart
green pie apples in July and
sweet corn in August?
THE BUYER said that
when New York corn comes
to an end in the fall, Florida
corn is arriving on the
market and continues all
winter. In the spring, the
harvest of sweet corn moves
up the coast.
What surprised me most
and he is an honest man,
very interested in food and
flavor-was his statement
that the August corn from
nearby Maryland and Vir-
oipio opd tho To octor,, Chora