PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING. 137 



You ask how it can be done. Simply sit down and form a clear idea of 

 just what kind of plant you want, and then write out a full description of 

 it. Oo out into the field and spend a day or two, if necessary, in getting 

 a few plants which come the nearest to your ideal. The next season, 

 plant the seed from each plant in a square block, one after the other, 

 along one side of your field. Study these blocks, and you will be sure to 

 find that some of them show more uniformly good plants than the others. 

 Select the best block, get out the description of the ideal plant you started 

 to breed, and select a few of the plants in this best block that come the 

 nearest to your ideal, and save and plant them in the same way the next 

 year, using the balance of the crop from the selected plants for your 

 general crop. 



There is not a particle of doubt that 95 per cent, of the farmers of Mich- 

 igan could increase their corn crop an average of at least 5 per cent, by 

 such selection of seed corn, and that, too, at a small cost of labor. Isn't 

 it worth trying? 



But mere increase in the money value of your crops is not the only 

 thing I am pleading for. I need not repeat the oft told tale of the decad- 

 ence of American farming, of the sons who fly away to the city and to ruin, 

 of the daughters to whom farm life is a drudgery to be escaped at any cost. 

 Why? Because to both farm work is dreary drudgery, nothing more. 

 Would this be so if they were interested in such work as this? Would it 

 not be a relief to the monotony of the farm work if more time was given 

 to this kind of study and work? I do not need to argue the point. Every 

 father's and mother's heart answers yes; and if by my talk I have opened 

 up a way of developing greater interest in and respect for the intellectual 

 possibilities of farm work, I shall not have taken your time this evening 

 in vain. 



Mr. J. A. Pearce related an anecdote of his nephew, a young man who, 



discouraged with the lack of success with the old farm, in the ordinary 



lines of agriculture, sold it; but, as he could not bear to leave the old 



home, he bought it back again. Meantime he had talked with Mr. Tracy 



and had become inspired to renew work though along new lines. He 



began in horticulture and has well succeeded. Mr. Tracy should have 



the credit for good work done in this instance; and no doubt his good 



influences have been as potent of good results in other cases. 

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