Forwarding this request to the maize net for any responses from netters.
Ed Coe
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Ron <rknight at ntelos.net> wrote:
Dear Sirs:
I must first admit that I am not very computer literate; however, I
found your site and thought that an inquiry might be worthwhile.
Thank you for your time and any assistance in my search for a few old
varieties of corn.
I am looking for a source of red dents and white and yellow flints. I
would like to find tall varieties with large ears. As a child I
remember seeing some very large Bloody Butcher ears that were well
filled of excellent quality raised by small subsistence farmers here
in southern West Virginia and used mostly for livestock feed. I also
remember both a large yellow flint (believe that it was Longfellow
Flint) and a large white flint. Some of these corns were ground
locally and used for meal. This was in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
I have located Bloody Butcher seed but at $4.00 a pound in 50 pound
bags is just purely unreasonable in my opinion. I have not found the
flint types. One dent corn I found is Wapsie Valley Dent. Can you
give me an accurate description of it?
My reason for looking for these varieties include a desire to once
more raise them and to possibly incorporate them into a small project
to save seed, personal use as food and livestock feed, and to have a
little more variety in a market garden project for sale as
ornamentals.
My wife and I raise a small ( 2 to 3 ac.) vegetable plot and plan on
about 25 acres of corn this year. We will plant only open pollinated
varieties. It will also be necessary to plant a few varieties for
home seed production at other locations for isolation purposes since
we have only 48 acres. It has been my experience that it is also
nearly impossible and cost prohibitive to try to find enough seed of
one specific variety when searching for the rarer corns to make
planting several acres possible.
I am also interested in finding a source of good descriptive
information concerning many of the various corns.
Thank you again for any assistance. I will be happy to write to you
if you wish to send a mailing address.
Best Regards,
Ron Knight
