SHELLER FOR SEED CORN

Apparatus for shelling seed corn in a manner which minimizes damage to the individual kernels includes a generally closed housing open at the top to receive ears of corn and having lower apertures for discharging the corn cobs to waste and recovering the kernels extracted from the cobs. Disposed within the housing are a pair of vertically aligned arrays of rollers, with the pair of roller arrays horizontally spaced from one another. Ears of corn are deposited through a slot in an upper portion of the housing and pass between the two arrays of vertically aligned rollers. The horizontal spacing between adjacent, horizontally aligned rollers in the first and second arrays of rollers decreases in proceeding from top to bottom, with the spacing between the two uppermost rollers being such as to easily allow an ear of corn to pass therebetween and the spacing between the bottom pair of rollers being essentially equal to the diameter of a corn cob. The rollers in the first and second arrays are rotationally displaced in opposite directions and at different speeds so as to urge the ears of corn into the space between the two arrays in a downward direction. Each cylindrical roller is comprised of a compressible, resilient material such as rubber and has an irregular, rough-textured outer surface for aggressively engaging the ears of corn and removing the kernels therefrom.