(Image credit: Everrett Collection/Shutterstock)
In Iowa, you can hear the corn grow.
The other night my friend Howard brought over some grass stalks to show me the sound. Corn kernels, like other grains, are the edible seeds of certain types of grass plants. He wanted to demonstrate the sound he heard growing up on an Iowa farm, so he pulled the stems of each stalk through its leaf sheath; one weedy stalk made the gentle popping sound he’d heard on hot humid nights.
“Sounds just like a bowl of Rice Krispies,” said another friend, who farms in the Finger Lakes region of New York. According to him, all rural people know that noise — not just those from the Corn State. Although a crop consultant dismissed the idea as hogwash, this is an example of how legends and logic are part of the work of coaxing food from the land. And no one can argue about what this sound broadcasts: the great potential for connections between people and plants.
from WordPress https://jonathanwilhoite.wordpress.com/2016/07/24/seed-saving-and-iowas-corn-train-gospel-oh-so-corny/
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