People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1895 — White and Yellow Corn. [ARTICLE]

White and Yellow Corn.

In order to settle the much disputed question whether the yield of corn is affected by color the Mississippi experiment station has made 138 tests with 45 varieties of Dent corn. As a result of this work the 75 tests with 35 white varieties have given an averageyield of 43 bushels per acre, while the 63 tests with 20 yellow varieties have given an average of only 38.2 bushels per acre. These total averages coincide very closely with the partial results published in several of the annual reports, and which were as follows: In 1890 the yield of 17 white varieties was 44.6 bushels per acre, while 15 yellow varieties gave 37.1 bushels; in 1891, 25 white varieties yielded 37.5 bushels, while 18 yellow varieties yielded 34-. 9 bushels per acre; in 1892 the yield of 11 white varieties was 45.2 bushels, while the same number of yellow varieties gave only 40.5 bushels per acre; in 1893 and 1894 the tests were continued with 22 white varieties, yielding 42.7 bushels, and 19 yellow varieties, yielding 39.1 bushels per acre. During each year of this w’ork the two varieties giving the heaviest yields were both white, though not always the same varieties. These results have been so unifrom and have indicated so strongly that the better yield can usually be secured from white varieties that the puplished records of similar work done at other stations have been examined very carefully and have been found to correspond very closely with the results secured at this station. These figures show that in a total of 1,267 tests with 490 varieties, the average yield of 217 white varieties has been 2.5 bushels per acre in excess of the yield of 273 yellow varieties, and that at only one of the seven stations making these tests have the yellow varieties given the better average yield. At six of the seven stations some one white variety has given the best yield, and of the 35 varieties named as giving the best yields at the different stations, 24 are white, and only seven are yellow. An event of the near future that is creating considerable interest is the race between Mr. Phegley on his running pony and Francis Acklin on a Mystic wheel.