“If you plant corn, you get corn” (proverb)

“If you plant corn, you get corn” is a proverb that means “you reap what you sow.” The proverb is based on the New Testament’s Galatians 6:7: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap.”
 
“If you sow corn you will reap corn” has been cited in print since at least 1897; “If you plant corn you will reap corn” was cited in print in 1914. “If you plant corn, you get corn” has been popular with many authors and lecturers since the 1980s. “There’s an old saying if you plant corn, you get corn” was spoken in a 2012 television interview about the Trayvon Martin murder case.
   
 
Biblos
Galatians 6:7
King James 2000 Bible (©2003)
Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap.
     
22 March 1897, Galveston (TX) Daily News, “Sowing and Reaping,” pg. 8, col. 3:
“My text to-night talks about a law. ‘Tis of harvest. This law is tho same in the spiritual world as in the material. The law Is that what you sow you will reap. If you sow corn you will reap corn. If you sow wheat you will reap wheat.”
 
16 February 1914, Colorado Springs (CO) Gazette, ‘Evangelist T. R. Rippey Wins More Conversions,” pg. 3, col. 6:
Harvest Same as Seed.
You reap the same sort of seed you sow. In the natural world you get corn if you plant corn seed, and wheat if you plant wheat seed. Just so in the moral realm.
 
18 October 1914, Macon (GA) Daily Telegraph, “Use Only Thoroughbred Seed,” pg. 4, col. 3:
There is no law in nature which has been more indisputably established than that one which says: “Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.” If you plant corn you will reap corn. If you plant tomatoes you are going to reap tomatoes. Whatever you sow you will reap.
 
16 April 1936, Hattiesburg (MA) American, “Two Plus Two: Johnston Raps Gambling, Drinking,” pg. 3:
Just as the law of mathematics holds under any and all conditions, so says the great Apostle, is this equally as true of God’s law, that “whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.”
 
This is true in nature—if you plant corn you get corn, if you plant cotton you get cotton.
(Rev. A Sidney Johnston—ed.)
 
19 August 1944, Chester (PA) Times,  “What Shall We Reap?” (editorial), pg. 6, col. 1:
In one of St. Paul’s glorious epistles he tells the Galatians, “Be not deceived. God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
 
It’s a good formula. It’s like saying if you plant corn you will get corn in due time. Likewise, if you plant hate you will get hate in return.
 
Google Books
Logic
By Wesley C Salmon
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall
1973
Pg. 98:
If you plant corn, you get corn. If you plant thistles, you don’t expect to get strawberries. Likewise, if you plant hatred and murder, you can’t expect to get peace, justice, and brotherhood.
 
Google Books
Run to the Roar
By Tammy Faye Messner with Cliff Dudley
Harrison, AR: New Leaf Press
1980
Pg. 60:
If you plant corn, you’re not going to get turnips, you know. If you plant corn, you’re going to get corn, and that seed of fear was dropped in my heart by Satan.
 
Google Books
Achieving Excellence Through Customer Service
By John Tschohl and Steve Franzmeier
Englewood Cliffs, NJ : Prentice Hall
1991
Pg. 98:
Most everyone realizes that if you plant corn, you get corn. lf you plant beans, you get beans. And. if you plant weeds. you get weeds. It’s that way with customer service..
 
Google Books
Dr. Laura: A Mother in America:
Christian insights about America’s best-known mom
By Ray McClendon
Colorado Springs, CO: Chariot Victor Pub.
1999
Pg. 138:
There is just no getting around the “law of harvest.” If you plant corn, you get corn. If you plant potatoes, you get potatoes. If you plant chaos, you will reap chaos.
 
Google Books
Practical Miracles for Mars and Venus:
Nine Principles for Lasting Love, Increasing Success, and Vibrant Health in the Twenty-First Century
By John Gray
New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
2000
Pg. 99:
If you plant corn, then you get corn. If you don’t plant corn, then you don’t get corn. While this was an advanced teaching thousands of years ago, most ten-year- olds today can completely understand it.
   
Google Books
The Influential Leader:
12 Steps to Igniting Visionary Decision Making
By John Edmund Haggai
Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers
2009
Pg. 154:
If you plant corn, what do you get? Corn. If you plant friendship, what do you get? Friends.
 
Most people will agree with me that far.
 
AllYourTV.com
Zimmerman Neighbor Talks To CNN: Prior Burglaries Were By ‘Young Black Males’
Created on Tuesday, 03 April 2012 11:49
Written by Rick Ellis
(...)
TAAFFE:  There’s an old saying if you plant corn, you get corn.
O’BRIEN:  I don’t know that saying.  I’ll have to ask you to tell me what that means.  What does that mean in this case?
TAAFFE:  It is what it is.  It is what it is.  I would go on record by stating that of the eight prior burglaries in the 15 months prior to the Trayvon Martin shooting, all of the perpetrators were young black males.