On the Earliest Forms of non-Native Sweet Corn
We no longer have the earliest forms of sweet corn grown by American settlers in New England. The earliest varieties now extant—Stowell’s Evergreen, and a White 12 row landrace that is a form of the Old Colony Corn were both creations of the 1840s. I have asked various Native seed keepers whether the original Papoon landrace survived among the families of the Six Nations. Some said yes, some said no. In the hopes of a certain identification, I’ll lay out the information about the original sweet corn planted in New England in the 1790s.
Sweet Corn first became known to Anglo-Americans in 1779 as a spoil of war. Revolutionary General John Sullivan invaded the Six Iroquois Nations, because they were allies of the British, Lt. Richard Bagnal of Poor’s Brigade collected several ears of “Papoon” when the patrol overran a Native encampment. Seed from these ears was planted in Spring of 1780 in Massachusetts and harvested in August. [Old Colony Memorial. Reprint:t Middlesex Gazette]
Papoon corn—so called because its sweetness made it agreeable to infants—popooses—is thought by maize geneticist to have been an 18th century mutation of the northern flint corn. It was one of three spontaneous and separate mutations in the western hemisphere that rendered corn sugary rather than starchy. (Chulpi in Chili and Maize Dulce in Mexico were the other, earlier Native sweet varieties.). Popoon corn had wrinkled white kernels set on a medium sized red cob. The stalks were short and rather slender. The seed was “more tender and liable to rot that common corn” [Rondout Freeman (Kingston NY, July 24, 1847), 1.].
Almost immediately farmers sought to improve papoon corn, selecting for lighter colored cobs. The second alteration was to breed an early maturing variety. By 1800 a white cobbed strain became the standard New England sweet corn. In 1809 the first early Sweet Corn was advertised in New York newspapers—it had 12 rows rather than 8. Some difficulties attended these breeding efforts since the proximity of field corn grown in the vicinity of sweet corn usually rendered the sweet corn starchy rather than sugary. He other sign of cross pollination was the increase from 8 rows to 12. Indeed the sugar mutation was not stable and would revert into common flint particularly in greatly fertile bottom lands. Because of this, sweet corn would be garden grown rather than field grown in the 1810s and would be categorized in seed catalogs as a garden corn for much of the 19th century. New England sweet corn was not prolific; the cobs were rather short and irregular; and like many northern flints had eight rows. Seed selection only went so far in creating a prolific sugar corn with larger ears. In the 1810s and 1820s “succotash corn” of “succatash corn” became a synonym for sweet corn in the northeast.
Farmers noted the avidity with which cattle and hogs sought out sugar corn foliage for eating; cattle breaking into corn fields became a problem in new England. In Dorchester MA a systematic trial of sugar corn stalks and leaves as fodder was made, and suggested animals were healthy for feeding on it. This led to a double usage for sweet corn.
In 1847 Reverend A. R. Pope crossed this New England strain with large eared “Southern White Corn”—probably Cocke’s Prolific—the hybrid cross would be named “Old Colony Corn” referencing Plymouth colony.
Hovey & Company, seed merchants in Boston, bought Pope’s entire seed stock and made it a proprietary line. They had witnessed the explosive popularity of Stowell’s Evergreen sweet corn, and saw Old colony as a worthy rival. The Hovey’s staged a comparative tasting under the auspices of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, knowing that the testers would manifest a New England preference over the New Jersey creation. “As a table corn we give the palm without hesitation to the Old Colony.” The Horticultural Review and Botanical Magazine 4 (1854), 384.