SEED IMPROVEMENT MEETING. I9I 



the ear of corn that gives a high yield this year ; its progeny to 

 give a high yield next year; and so on, the third year. If we 

 succeed in linding an ear of corn which breeds true in this 

 manner we are fairly certain that it is one containing the char- 

 acter of high yield so strongly that pollenation from many other 

 plants cannot predominate over this one of high yield. Having 

 found this one ear that breeds true, i. e., gives us a high yield, 

 we can use it to cross with selected ears from our general field. 

 We would allow the plants of this high producing ear to develop 

 pollen and we would ensure that the plants from the other 

 selected ears were fertilized with this pollen, by detasselling all 

 the plants from selected ears. Some of you may have heard 

 me state that I did not believe our method of selecting only 

 ten ears of corn to try out in a breeding plat could be capable 

 of giving us much success, and that success in a short time. 

 What are the chances of finding one good ear of the character 

 which we have in mintl in selecting only ten ears ? I think that 

 ten ears is too small a number to deal with. Breeding on such a 

 basis it would take years to attain our goal. We ought to select 

 25 or 30 ears of corn each year from our general field and try 

 them out in the breeding plat; and we ought to have, separate 

 from this entirely, another breeding plat planted entirely to 

 the highest yielding ears in the plat of the preceding year. At 

 the Experiment Station valuable work has been done in sweet 

 corn breeding. It was found in their breeding work that only 

 one valuable ear of corn that had firmly established the ability 

 to produce high yields year after year was found in the selec- 

 tion of three or four hundred ears. Hence it would seem advis- 

 able for us to increase the basis of our selections in corn breed- 

 ing. You know that corn cannot be inbred very closely, as we 

 say. The best results, the highest yields, have been obtained 

 by crossing. That is what we endeavor to do in our ear-to-the- 

 row metJiod of testing corn. In and in breeding in corn is 

 illustrated in some of the types which we have in this State. 

 This past season I was able to see the effects of in and in 

 breeding in half a dozen different strains of twelve-rowed 

 flint corn. One, especially, was markedly instructive. This 

 type of twelve-rowed flint had been grown on the same farm 

 continuously for twenty-eight years. The plants stood about 

 5 1-2 feet tall. The stalks were rarely over half an inch in 

 diameter in the thickest portion. The leaves were narrow, and 



