DAIRY AND SEED IMPROVEMENT MEETINGS. 2-J }^ 



closed in small husks and then having husks over the entire ear. 

 Man has taken that corn and, by a gradual process, has changed 

 it into sweet corn, pop corn, flint or dent corn. 



Plants are very flexible and can be changed. We have not, 

 by any means, reached the ultimate results which may be looked 

 for. What are the tools which a plant breeder uses? All 

 plants differ ; no two are alike. There are no two potato plants, 

 no two corn plants, no two blades of grass that are alike. Take 

 a microscope and examine a few cells of a blade of grass, and 

 there are no two alike; they all differ just as persons differ. 

 This makes the starting point for breeding purposes; if plants 

 were all alike, there would be no chance for choice. Of course, 

 from this follows selection. We choose the best ; we plant the 

 best; and thereby improvement is made. 



Next, is what we know as "sports." Take a field of oats; 

 go over the field and study the individual plants. You may find 

 a few plants that are head and shoulders above the rest ; these 

 may or may not be sports — that is, exceptional plants which 

 are the beginning of new and superior strains. 



Now, we have taken up first, seed selection, breeding from 

 the best ; second, looking for exceptional plants with the hope 

 that they may be the beginning of a new strain ; then comes 

 the third factor, the crossing of different plants ; to bring good 

 qualities of one plant over upon another plant and combining 

 the good qualities of both. These are the three methods that 

 are used in plant breeding. 



Selection: There is a point of view I wish to present in 

 the evolution of plants with which you may be already familiar, 

 but which has changed our whole method of breeding in the 

 last few years ; that is, the importance of breeding from indi- 

 vidual plants. Farmers have been selecting seed corn ever 

 since they planted corn. When a man husks his corn he has a 

 basket where he places the good ears — the ears he saves for 

 seed ; then he takes good care of these and uses them for seed 

 the next spring. He takes those seed ears, shells them and 

 mixes the corn together. You see what he has done ; he has 

 some superior ears ; he has practiced selection, but he knows 

 nothing about the power of these separate ears to transmit 

 themselves to the next generation. He has had a good crop 

 this year, but he is not sure that each of these good ears will 



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