When I was growing up, the phrase I always heard as we would drive out of the city in early summer was “knee high by the Fourth of July”. That was the first marker as to whether the corn was growing well in hope of a good harvest.
I now live, of course, right in the midst of many fields full of corn, which I get a much closer look at than is possible while speeding by in a car on a highway. Any time I go walking, I pass some; the furthest I can get in any direction without passing a corn field is a quarter of a mile. (Well, ok, I could do better if I went north, but I don’t particularly want to go into the marsh.) And I can tell you that if a corporate reviewer were looking at the corn, the check mark would go next to “exceeding expectations”. It is not yet the Fourth of July, and the corn is somewhat above knee high. It is somewhat above shoulder high. In fact, it’s already over my head, and I’m not short.
Well, alright, maybe it is knee high…if you’re a giraffe.
I’ve had this discussion with my dh who is from upstate NY. We decided that it is a saying from the Northeast and that in more southern climes it should be shoulder-high or head-high.