DAIRY MEETING. IO5 



brought in from outside without any respect to what it produces 

 or is worth. I want to devote the most of the time allotted 

 me to a discussion of the methods that might be used by a 

 farmer to improve the com crop. Dr. Twitchell spoke of some 

 of these things. I will try to explain them a little more 

 minutely. The first thing necessary, when a man attempts to 

 improve any crop or animal, is to understand something of the 

 nature of the plant or animal. Just a word about the structure 

 and the habits of the corn plant. It is a plant that varies from 

 two or three feet up to 18, 20, or 24 feet in height, in some 

 varieties. The original habit or intention of the corn was to 

 produce an ear at each of the joints of the stalk, and if you will 

 cut crosswise right above each of these you will find a small, 

 undeveloped ear; so that if one ear is destroyed you often find 

 another coming out. We have bred the corn for one or 'two 

 ears to a stalk and the others have not developed. The ears 

 in the beginning were small ; now we have larger ears and fewer 

 of them. One of the principal things to understand in the 

 improvement of the corn plant is the method by which the ear 

 is formed, or the method of fertilization. The corn plant is 

 one which bears both male and female organs of reproduction 

 on the same stock. The tassel is the male and contains the 

 pollen. The silk is the female organ, and corresponds to the 

 pistil of the flower, which is fertilized by having the pollen 

 shaken down over it, and in that way the kernels of corn are 

 formed. There should be one silk going down to what will 

 ultimately be a kernel of corn, and if for any reason these silks 

 are imperfectly fertilized, you get the nubbin or the imperfectly 

 formed ear. For the reason that the pollen is produced above 

 the pistil, there is a great chance for inbreeding in corn. There 

 has been a great deal of dispute as to whether the pistil was in 

 proper stage for fertilization when the tassel ripened or not. I 

 believe scientists are still divided about this, but certainly self 

 fertilization is a possible thing, and there is nothing that will 

 run out the vigor and vitality of a strain of com any quicker 

 than this continued self fertilization. Inbreeding with the com 

 plant results exactly as inbreeding does in your dairy herds or 

 with any other animals. In any effort to improve a variety of 

 corn one of the first things to do, then, is to avoid this inbreed- 



