Corn

Jefferson had an ambivalent relationship with corn (Zea mays), a crop notorious for depleting the soil of nitrogen and other essential nutrients. In a 1793 letter to George Washington, Jefferson disparaged the grain as, along with tobacco, antithetical to good husbandry, but outlined a plan for crop rotation that would allow its continued planting. This plan he explained in detail in a subsequent letter to James Madison. Although corn was primarily a field crop, Jefferson did grow it in his garden both for experimental purposes and for the table. 

Native to the Americas, corn (or maize) was consumed in a myriad of ways depending largely upon when it was harvested. Modern corn varieties include a sweet corn that was developed specifically to be eaten while young and juicy and is not useful for grinding into meal. The types of corn Jefferson grew were more closely related to flint and dent corn varieties used today for chips, cereals, starch, and other corn products for human use as well as for animal feed. The ears remain on the stalk, the kernels becoming starchier and drier until, when completely dry, they are harvested, removed from the cob and safely stored until taken to the mill for grinding. In Jefferson’s time young, sweeter ears were picked young, roasted, and served whole. Writing to Nicholas Lewis in 1787, Jefferson complained that the species of corn he was able to get in Paris to “eat green in our manner” was hard and dry and asked if Lewis could send him an ear of the “small white rare type of corn which we called Homony-corn” at Monticello for planting in his garden. 

Jefferson’s garden contained several varieties of corn at different times. Some appeared regularly while others were experimental. In general, any “forward” corn developed quickly and was ready to roast in as little as two months. “Quarentine” corn was a variety developed in Italy and introduced to him in 1805 by Philippe Reibelt, who attested that in Maryland, a 40,000-foot field had produced four harvests in two months. The seeds he received from Reibelt failed, but more were forwarded through Christian Mayer on 18 June 1806. Jefferson thanked Mayer profusely for the seeds, “a present of real value, as this kind of corn is a timely successor to the garden pea, on our tables, where we esteem it as much as the pea: but it’s greater value is to furnish early subsistence after a year of scarcity.” Jefferson also planted “Pani” or Pawnee corn, a variety he stated to have received from the Osages, and Mandan corn, sent to him by Lewis and Clark. He sent the Pani corn to Monticello in 1806, where it was planted below the garden, and again in 1807, along with Missouri hominy corn and Missouri soft corn. In 1808 he asked Edmund Bacon to plant Pani corn in the fields as well as in the garden. Jefferson recorded planting it in the garden until 1815. Of the eight mentions of corn in the weather records, two note frost damaging or killing the crop in May of 1779 and 1816. In Washington, D.C., forward corn arrived 19 July 1804 and roasting (“rosten”) ears were had 8 July 1808. Rosten ears were recorded at Edgehill on 30 June of the same year and common corn at Monticello on 30 July 1804.

References:

Edwin Morris Betts, ed., Thomas Jefferson’s Garden Book, 1766–1824 (Philadelphia, 1944).

Jefferson to Nicholas Lewis, 17 September 1787.

Jefferson to George Washington, 28 June 1793.

Jefferson to James Madison, 29 June 1793.

Enclosure at Meriwether Lewis to Jefferson, 7 April 1805.

Philippe Reibelt to Jefferson, 15 May 1805.

Philippe Reibelt to Jefferson, 18 May 1805.

Christian Mayer to Jefferson, 18 June 1806.

Jefferson to Christian Mayer, 20 June 1806.

Jefferson to Edmund Bacon, 21 November 1806.

List of Items sent to Monticello, 7 January 1807.

Jefferson to Edmund Bacon, 8 March 1808.

Jefferson to Ellen Wayles Randolph, 5 July 1808.

Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 24 March 1811.