As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
This is something which you will have to know, as if I were to ask you, "How much corn would you need to plant to feed you and your family next year?", you would not have any idea, and if you found Monsanto planting ratios or 30,000 seeds to the acre in old corn you would be clueless.
The Hidatsa, or the Three Nations, have the old information and it lists a follows. They measured things in strings and braids.
55 ears to a string. (The string of braided corn, was what a squaw could lift to the drying platform.)
What was required to feed a family of four in planting seed.
5 braided strings of soft white
30 ears of soft yellow
I am not placing Indians in the category of all knowing and what they say is written in stone, as they are an arrogant bunch yet of savages who like Obama get far too much leeway from idiots who think exotic is intelligent..........image Obama proves that wrong.
It is like the story of the Indians bitching they never had thistle seeds before the white man came. Yes that is Canadian and Russian thistles.........but you can find them bitching about the weeding they had to do before the white people came, so there were and always are weeds in Indian America. It had nothing to do with white people.
Another story were these same Indians bitching about how much like dirt potatoes tasted. Same Indians ate Jerusalem Artichokes, which are so obnoxious in tasting like dirt, that you know you are eating dirt when you eat them.
Indians are racists, prejudiced and biased. They have some primitive ideas which work in really primitive situations, which you would be exposed to in a meltdown of society.
Corn was chosen, as it is easier to plant and harvest than wheat. It is why the pioneers always raised it.
When the Indians mention "soft" corn. They are not speaking of flint corn, which is hard. Corn as I have written of here, comes in varieties of sweet, popcorn, oil, meal, and starch or flour corn. The soft corns were the flour corns. They tended to be non dent corns and smooth on the top like flint.
You just have to have these old seeds for your inventory, or all you will have is the flint or dent corns giving you meal, which is gritty, and not a flour corn of high starch. Starch is what you want as starch is converted to sugar, and sugar is energy for your survival.
Glenn Drowns has a series of these old corns at Sand Hill Preservation Center. They are in small quantities, but if you put in your plot, you can start building your braids and have your ears which you desire.
I can not state that yellow corn is "sweeter" than other corns. It is part that yellow is just more eye appealing. The old corns are interesting in what they were and still are. They were individualized, and the Hidatsa in their records planted just the four kinds primarily it seemed, in hard white and yellow, and soft white and yellow. They used for roasting, green and whatever. The flint or hard corns though were not parched as too their shell was too hard.
That is your survival lesson for today. You need to know corn as it is not all the same animal when you are stuck eating it...........and yes your rows can be rounded. Nothing has to be straight rows in corn.
agtG
