Brookhaven Corn Growers?? Anyone out there?

Corn Cribs like this were common in Delaware County. The one above stood at South Ave. and MacDade Blvd. on the Bethel Custer Farm

 

NOTE: Please red this article from 1913. Few of us today think of Delco as great farming country, but 100 years ago it was a different story.

 

 

CORN GROWERS’ FINE EXHIBITS 

Show of the Brookhaven Association in Media a Successful One

  The corn show of the Brookhaven Corn Growers’ Association of Delaware County closed Saturday evening and was a most successful affair.  A great many people from all parts of the county attended, and the 150 or so exhibits were carefully scrutinized and compared.  Professor D. A. Cromwell of Humboldt College, Iowa, who acted as judge of the exhibits, said that this critical comparison by the farmers and others is the greatest improvement over the other show held, when those who attended were too modest to get much food from it.

Southeastern Pennsylvania, including Delaware County, was paid a great compliment by the professor in response to a question as to whether this section can grow as good corn as Kansas.  He said “Southeastern Pennsylvania, and this section, can grow better corn than any place in the world.”  He said that “Chester loam,” so called because the first government soil survey found it in and around Chester, is the best soil in the country, and will grow anything well that is suited to the climate.  The farmers here, he said, should be the most prosperous in the country.

He said that the exhibits were very much better than those at the last show here, and gave a small group of farmers who gathered around him, a talk on corn growing, together with kindred subjects, that lasted nearly an hour.  In this crowd was one man who said that he had been selecting seen corn for sixty years, beginning when he was ten years old, yet he admitted that he had habitually picking the wrong kind of ears and would know better in the future.

It is noticeable that the winners of the various prizes in many cases got more than one prize, a comparatively small group of the exhibitors getting anything.  In all of the contests except those which will be noted, the exhibits consisted of ten dollars.  The prizes consisted of $5 to the first; $3 to the second; and a ribbon to the third.  The winners were as follows:

Southeastern Pennsylvania corn – Howard Mendenhall, first; H. G. Warnall, second; W. C. Conrad, third.

White Cap Dent – Howard Cloud, first; Howard Mendenhall, second; Howard Cloud, third.

Leaming Corn – Benjamin F. Fields, first; Williamson School, second; Benjamin F. fields, third

Yellow Dent Corn – E. Edwin Cheyney, first; Howard Mendenhall, second; Isaiah Worrell, third

Red Corn – W. H. Baker, first; H. G. Yarnall, second; T. H. Wittkorn, third

White Corn – T. H. Wittkorn, first; Samuel Goodley, second; R. E. Evans, third

Pop Corn – T. H. Wittkorn, first and second; T. B. Palmer, third

Flint Corn – Willis Marshall, first; W. H. Baker, second; T. H. Wittkorn, third

Sweet corn – One exhibit, Thomas J. Yarnall

Miscellaneous – J. H. Mendenhall, first; Samuel Goodley, second; Thomas J. Yarnall, third

Thirty ear contest – Benjamin F. Fields, Leaming Corn, first; T. H. Wittkorn, white corn, second; Samuel Goodley, Leaming corn, third.  Mr. Feld also won the thirty-ear contest with his exhibit at the Chester County show last week.

The contest for the best shelling corn resulted in a tie between the exhibits of Edwin Cheyney and Howard Cloud.  Thirty-five pounds of cob corn were entered, and these two exhibits gave thirty pounds of shelled corn each.  There were eleven entries, and of these all but one shelled out over 29 pounds.  The other one shelled out twenty-seven and one-half pounds.

There were two grange exhibits, one from Brookhaven winning first prize and the second prize going to village Grange.

The prize for the best corn display went to T. H. Wittkorn, whose exhibit had no competitor.  W. H. Baker, Isaiah Worrell and William Armstrong, were respectively first, second, and third in the contest with displays of farm products.  The best ten ears in the show were those shown by Thomas Wittkorn, and the best ear was that shown by Benjamin F. Fields.