Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 86, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 February 1912 — The World’s Greatest Ear of Corn [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The World’s Greatest Ear of Corn

\ Palin's Corn Flake Yellow. (Named after winning the W. K. Kellogg SI,OOO Trophy.) A HYBRID—The seventh year production. PARENT PLANTS ( Male—Reid’s Yellow Dent. ( Female—Alexander’s Gold Standard. ■’‘DIMENSIONS—Length, 105$ Inches. Circumference 794 inches. Number of rows, 20. Length of kernels, 94 of an inch. Width of kernels, about % of an inch. Thickness of kernels, 1-6 of an inch. Arrangement, very uniform, kernels y running in straight rows the entire length of the ear without a misplaced grain, holding their length well to the ends of the ear, tip being well covered with dented grains. Weight, 20 ounces. Estimated proportions —corn, 92 per cent; cob, S per cent.

The champion ear of corn was not an accident. There can be no greater lesson in the value of careful study* and painstakihg selection of seed and breeding than the experiences of this same Palin. The farmer who thinks he stands a chance to go into his corn field and by a piece of luck pick out an ear which Nature has fashioned even more perfectly and with it wrest the honors from this Indiana man, cannot do better to disabuse his mind of this fallacious notion than to read the story of Palin and his champion ear.

In the first place, Palin knows corn. If there were no more proof of this fact than the bare story of the development and discovery of the champion ear, it would be enough. And in proof of this fact, here is the story as he told it himself. “It was in November,.. 1910. and we were just harvesting oui crop. The weather had been good, but we were a litfle late with the harvest. The men were going through the fields with the wagon -in the usual way gathering the corn, and the harvest was a promising one. “We have a sort of corn show at my farm all the time and there is always Jan award for exceptionally good ears of corn—ears sufficiently true to type to permit of their being exhibited. Therd is a small box on’ every corn ’wagon in Which the most perfect ears are thrown. These, when properly selected, constitute the seed corn, and among these more perfect ears we occasionally find an ear that we ate willing to exhibit in a contest. “On the day the champion ear was found, I was at the house and at dinner time one of the men brought it in and laid it, with a number of other ears, upon the window sill in the well room for me to take and put away in the seed house, i ’ ■ “‘Well,’ I said, ‘do you think you’ve got a good ear there?’ - ■ “It looks to me like a good ear,” ’ he said. “What do you think of it?”,’ > ’“I picked it up and looked it over. ‘Well,’ I said finally,’ ‘I think it is the most perfect ear of corn I ever saw. It’s good enough to win the W. K. Kellogg SI,OOO trophy this year at Omaha.’ "And I was confident the moment 1 saw it, and looked it over, that I held the' trophy winner in my hand. So much so that when 1 .left for Omaha to exhibit the ear, I took it out of ’my grip and showed it to* the station agent with ‘the words. ‘That’s the ear I’m going to win the, sk,ooo trophy with.’ ” So there’s the story of the’Cham- . pion ear as Palin told ' it himself. 1 And on the strength of it Who will say that Fred C. Palin doesn’t just-

farmer began about sixteen years ago. He had been on the road' as a grocery* specialty salesman. 1 when he took a notion that he; would rather be an agriculturist, so he took a few short courses ati Purdue University and rented a' portion of the farm he now occu-l pies. Nine years ago he began care- ! full}; breeding this new variety of corn. For two years 'he planted two rows of Reid’s Yellow Dent, 1 then two of Alexander’s Gold Standard, detasseling the Gold Standard From > the detasseled rows he picked for seed only the ears carrying the characteristics he wanted to 1 eproduce, planting these in breeding plots and maintaining careful selection, so that in“ nine years time he had developed a well-settled type. The Palin champion ear was the first winner of the W. K. Kellogg National Corn Trophy, a handsome silver and enamel cup made by Tiffany of New York at "k cost of SI,OOO. Mr. Kellogg as the originator and manufacturer of Toasted Corn Flakes naturally has a deep interest in the development of the higher grades of .:<corn, for the company of which he is president, the Kellogg Toasted Corn Flake Co., requires ten thousand bushels of corn a day for the making of its product. The Kellogg trophy was offered to be awarded in annual competition for (.he best single ear of corn until won twice by the same producer. The fa that the Kellogg product is made only from selected wihite corn, while the winning ear was of a pronounced yellow type, was a peculiar feature.

The Kellogg trophy was won in 1910 at Columbus, Ohio, by R. A. James, of Charleston, 111., with a ipagnificient ear of Reid’s Yellow Dent, but not so perfect an ear as that which originally won the trophy and which has become known as “the best ear of corn ever grown.”. The next award of this trophy will be made at the next National Corn Exposition, which will be held in February, 1913, at, Colum-

bia, S. C. It is planned to make this exposition much broader in scope than any held in the past, and consequently a longer time will be required for preparation. Special buildings are being erected for the exposition, the main building to be 400 by 167 feet, ground measurements. The show will last ten days. The state of South Carolina has appropriated $40,000 for the expenses of the exposition and the prospect is that Dixie., will “do herself proud” in an effort to make this exposition the greatest of its kind ever held.

Fred C. Palin.