Field Notes
Cocke’s Prolific field corn was long thought to be extinct. For English professor David Shields, its rediscovery is like finding white gold.
Posted on: April 1, 2019; Updated on: April 1, 2019
By Craig Brandhorst, craigb1@mailbox.sc.edu, 803-777-3681
There’s plenty to see between Landrum, South Carolina, and the 27-acre farm where we’re headed, out Highway 414. The Blue Ridge Mountains roll into and out of view on the horizon, small family farms appear around every bend. If you veer off down Hogback Mountain Road, you’ll hit a picturesque peach orchard, the trees weighed down with blushing ripe freestones, July Prince, the final harvest of the year.
We’re not here for the peaches, though. And we’re not here to see mountains. We’re here to learn about an heirloom corn variety — Cocke’s Prolific white dent corn, to be exact — and if that sounds like a letdown, just wait. We’ve got University of South Carolina English professor and self-styled culinary historian David Shields for a guide, and if you’ve ever heard Shields give a talk, or you’ve read one of his celebrated books, you know what that means.
Shields is the longtime chairman of the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to the restoration and preservation of heirloom grains. He is steeped in agricultural history, Southern foodways, even genetics, and has earned an international reputation among food writers and casual foodies alike. The author of Southern Provisions: The Creation and Revival of a Cuisine (2015), a seminal book in its field, he’s also really good at explaining things, whether he’s advising restaurant chefs, talking to reporters or just chewing the fat.
“Cocke’s Prolific was once the most famous field corn in America,” Shields told me a few weeks before our trip, when I stopped by his office on campus to ask about his latest endeavor. “It was grown by Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. It was popular all over the South. Then it was gone.”
Indeed, until November 2017, just before Thanksgiving, Shields wasn’t sure he’d ever lay eyes on the stuff, much less taste it. As far as he knew, as far as any of his contacts in the heirloom food community knew, Cocke’s Prolific white dent corn was extinct, yet another victim of the industrialization of agriculture.
At one point, though, Shields included it on a list of the 10 most wanted culinary plants of the American South and posted the list on Facebook. It never hurts to see what turns up, he thought.
And sure enough, he got a tip. Angie Lavezzo, a seed distributor in Asheville, North Carolina, directed him to Clarence Gibbs, of Landrum, who was selling seeds on Craigslist identified as “Cox Prolific,” same name, different spelling. The seeds had been given to Gibbs by the man who actually grew them — the aptly named Manning Farmer, whose family had been growing the exact same corn for going on eight decades.
Could Cox and Cocke’s be one and the same? Shields didn’t know — there would need to be lab tests, plus plenty of additional research — but he couldn’t wait to find out. He drove up from Columbia at the first opportunity.
The mist of history
Cocke’s Prolific originated at Bremo Plantation, Virginia, where it was developed in the 1820s by Brigadier General John Hartwell Cocke, a wealthy planter and close associate of Thomas Jefferson. Back then, it was most revered as a high-octane horse feed among the racing set.
“One of the things the early Virginians loved about it was that it gave an energy kick to their race horses like nobody’s business,” says Shields. “That and Virginia turf oats gave them everything they needed.”
And no wonder. Cocke’s Prolific is dense with starch, rich with nutrients. It also promises a remarkable yield — a single stalk producing three, four, even five ears at once, with some ears measuring nearly a foot and a half in length.
To be enjoyed as a roasting ear, it needs to be eaten right away, during what’s known as the milk stage, before it toughens up. But after it bows to the ground and dries in the field, it makes excellent cornmeal, which helps explain its rise in popularity throughout the 19th century.
Originally known simply as Virginia field corn, Cocke’s distinctive cultivar spread quickly, was marketed under a variety of alternate names and sometimes crossed with other corns. Eventually, though, the original strain was christened Cocke’s Prolific to protect the brand and honor the man who created it. By the start of the 20th century, it was the field corn of choice across much of the South.
But then the spread of industrial farming narrowed the field. Cocke’s Prolific began to disappear from the seed catalogs. Unless a farmer assiduously saved seed year after year — and planted his cornfields far enough from other cornfields to avoid cross-fertilization — there was simply no way to procure it unless you knew someone that had it, and fewer and fewer people did.
“Sometime around World War II an industrial yellow dent corn from the Ohio Valley became the dent corn almost everywhere,” says Shields. “Now, it’s something like 90 percent of the dent corn grown in the United States. The white stuff just got pushed out. Only Southerners held onto it.”
And Cocke’s Prolific in particular?
“It was just gone, we thought. Vanished into the mist of history.”
Farmers’ spring
Manning Farmer turned 96 this year. His family has been living on this same patch of rolling farmland since — well, he isn’t quite sure. His house sits right up on the road now, but his family has moved around the property. His grandparents built the house where he grew up, just down the road, in 1918. His ancestors lived further back, near a small spring. He points in the general direction and says, “Over there.”
They didn’t have a well, he says. Just some rock laid out around the head of the stream.
“It’s growed up around it now,” Farmer says. “We cleaned it out one time, tried to get it working again, but when you get a little older, you might slow down a little bit. But a little work ain’t gonna hurt nobody. Sitting around the house worrying about going to work will kill you.”
The man’s not kidding. He’s in the field every morning, tends the kitchen garden, works like a man half his age. He owns a small sawmill and has his grandsons help turn the logs. He’s a wheelwright, too — “He can start from nothing and make a wheel,” says his friend Clarence Gibbs — and several decades ago, he constructed the long wooden shed next to his house using boards he milled himself. He mills his own corn on the rusty old grist mill inside. His daughter-in-law turns it into the corn bread he eats with lunch. His one vice, he’ll tell you, is a nap in the afternoon.
He pauses to reconsider the original question, but the answer is the same: “No, I don’t know how far back my people go.” But he knows what they planted. “Cotton and corn,” he says. “And molasses cane. Sorghum. They growed that.”
Shields’ eyes light up at the mention of sorghum. If an afternoon nap is Farmer’s vice, Sorghum syrup might be Shields’. He asks if Farmer still grows any, and what kind. “Honeydrip?”
“Got some over there,” Farmer says, not pointing anywhere in particular. “Squeezed some out last year.”
This isn’t a digression. This is just another part of Shields’ work. We’re here to talk corn, sure, but in the world of heirloom produce and Southern foodways, the story never takes a straight line.
Cox vs. Cocke’s
Manning Farmer’s mother’s brother ordered a shipment of Cocke’s Prolific seed from the Hastings Seed Company in Atlanta sometime in the 1930s. He then shared the seed with Manning Farmer’s father, who planted it, saved the seeds himself and handed them down to his son, effectively establishing the Farmer family corn, which is all it ever was — until Gibbs posted his ad on Craigslist and the foodies came calling.
“He’s had people come from everywhere,” says Gibbs with a laugh. “Somebody came with her mother to get some. They said they drove four hours. Another gentleman from Virginia called me up, and I shipped him some, but before he even got it he came down and got some more!”
As Gibbs recounts the corn’s remarkable ascent from the family farm to the World Wide Web — “See, Manning said it was called ‘Cocke’s,’ ” he is explaining, “but I just spelled what I thought he meant, ‘C-O-X,’ ” — Farmer ducks into the house.
A few minutes later, he returns with several long ears cradled against his denim overalls. Some are shucked, some aren’t. He harvested these last year, he says, or the year before. The husks are brittle, blackened in spots. He hands the longest ear to Shields and passes the others around, then apologizes for any weevils.
Shields is unfazed. “I’m not a vegetarian,” he jokes as he peels back the husk. He parts what’s left of the silk to show off the large white kernels. He runs a finger down the length of the ear, feeling the individual dents.
“See? They look almost like molars.” He holds it up for inspection. “Most dent corns are milling corns, but this is a really flinty dent corn. Many people think that all prolific corns are actually descendants of Cocke’s, adaptations that were made in various parts of the United States.”
A burst of ears
Shields could talk about Cocke’s Prolific all day. Gibbs and Farmer would listen. So would anybody else interested in agriculture, history or just good food. It may get heady, but it never grows dull.
“When Dr. Shields first came, I was just like a sponge, trying to absorb all this,” says Gibbs. “He talked about the corn’s origins, who Gen. Cocke was, where Bremo Plantation is, the genetics, all that. The history enhances the story.”
It’s true, but you could also say the people enhance the history, which is one reason for Shields’ success. He does the legwork, he consults the scientists — and yes, for the record, the story does check out — then he gets others on board. With Cocke’s Prolific, that means getting it into the hands of the people who understand grains, especially the professional millers and other small-scale farmers.
“I’ve distributed it to probably half a dozen people so far.” Shields counts them off on his fingers. “Glenn Roberts from Anson Mills in Columbia is growing it. Greg Johnsman from Geechie Boy Mill in Edisto is growing it. Monticello has it, Hickory Hill Plantation in Georgia — ”
He also sent some to the University of Kentucky — “I wanted to see how it would do up there” — and to James Pentecost, a direct descendent of John Hartwell Cocke. Dink Hyder, a Landrum peach farmer, now grows it between his orchards.
Shields will see what happens next, but he’s hopeful the legendary corn will make a comeback. He could see a Cocke’s Prolific corn bread on restaurant menus, he says. It might also work in whiskey. But that’s for the chefs and distillers to decide. All Shields knows for certain is that, pitted against today’s ubiquitous industrial corn, Cocke’s is the heavyweight, no room for comparison.
“The first time I came up here I remember Manning’s son, Darrell, ripping open this 19-inch, perfectly white cob,” he says, smiling at the image in his mind. “I was so excited, I forgot half my questions. There was one stalk where three or four ears had sprouted from a single node. It was just this burst of enormous corn ears, all coming from the same place on the stalk. I’d never seen anything like it. I never thought I would.”
