BEGINNINGS OF THE HETEROSIS CONCEPT 19 



McCluer, Shamel or East, in the selling and crossing of the maize plant. 

 This will become obvious as I explain the motivation and plan of procedure 

 of my corn experiments. 



Upon arriving at the Station for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring 

 Harbor on May 2, 1904, 1 found the laboratory building unfinished. It was in 

 fact not ready for occupation until the following November. The potentially 

 arable portion of the grounds was in part a swampy area in need of effective 

 provision for drainage. The rest had been at one time used as a garden. But 

 it had lain fallow for an unknown number of years, and was covered with a 

 heavy sod that would need a considerable period of disintegration before it 

 could be used satisfactorily as an experimental garden. The total area avail- 

 able was about an acre. 



In the middle of this small garden plot was a group of lusty young spruce 

 trees. These had to be removed in order to use the area for experimental 

 planting the following spring. The ground was plowed, disked, and planted 

 as soon as possible to potatoes, corn, sorghum, buckwheat, sugar beets, tur- 

 nip beets, and many kinds of ordinary garden vegetables. None of them 

 were designed as the beginning of a genetical experiment, but only as an ex- 

 cuse for keeping the ground properly tilled so it would be in best possible 

 condition for use as an experimental garden later. Due to this fact, no ade- 

 quate record was made of the origin of the several lots of seeds which were 

 planted. This is unfortunate in the several cases in which some of these cul- 

 tures did provide material for later experimental use. 



There were two cultures of corn, one a white dent, the other a Corry 

 sweet corn. These two varieties were planted at the special request of Dr. 

 Davenport, who wished to have available for display to visitors the striking 

 illustrations of Mendelian segregation of starchy and sugary grains on the 

 single ears of the crossbred plants. I planted the white dent corn with my 

 own hands on May 14, 1904, and must have known at the time that the grains 

 came from a single ear. Although I have found no contemporary record to 

 that effect, I am now convinced from a well-remembered conversation with 

 Mrs. Davenport, that this ear of white dent corn came from the farm of her 

 father, Mr. Crotty, who lived near Topeka, Kansas. 



When I was last in Ames, after almost forty years of devotion to other 

 lines of genetical experimentation, my memory played me false when Profes- 

 sor J. C. Cunningham asked me about the source of the foundation stock for 

 my experimental work with corn, and I told him that my studies on corn 

 began with some corn I had purchased in the local market as horse feed. I re- 

 peated the same unfortunate misstatement to several other highly reputable 

 historians of science. I deeply regret this error because these men were tr}-ing 

 so hard to get the record straight. My recollection was restored by iinding 

 the statement at the very beginning of the record of my formal corn studies 



