Q: An old timer give me some corn to plant the other day and he called it Coon corn. He said it produces a very large ear 12-14 inches long and is his favorite variety. Do you know what the real name of this corn could be?

A: See Sweet Corn.

This reference says early-maturing corn is called “coon corn’ because the ears are so low to the ground.

I received this note recently

Coon Corn was actually a hybrid of a long ear variety and a more per stalk variety (neither of which I know the actual name).  These two varieties were crossed together by my great-grandfather, Robert M. Cown but because our last name is always mispronounced, Coon became the slang name given by the fellow farmers.  His new hybrid variety was the first corn ever to yield 5 ears of corn per stalk.  The ears grew lower to the ground because there were more ears per stalk.  We have a picture of him with that corn stalk from 1886 (if I remember correctly) sitting in the door of the old building used to store the corn.  Even more remarkable is that my dad still has the actual corn stalk with the dates inscribed of when it was grown and when it was passed down to my grandfather, and then passed down to my dad who has it now.