SEED CORN. 35 



an inferior seed may occasionally yield a large crop, yet the 

 crop cannot be maintained as an average production without 

 improvement in the seed, as is shown by the" great variation 

 which occurs between the yield of different fields, planted 

 with the same seed, and whose difi'erences of product become 

 greater as the crop is forced the hardest by manuring, or high 

 culture. 



From what we have said, it will be appreciated that we be- 

 lieve in good seed, and that we also believe that manure can 

 produce a larger crop from one seed than another ; that fer- 

 tilizer purchased maybe money wasted with one seed, money 

 in the pocket with another ; that no yield should be striven 

 for through the application of manure beyond the profitable 

 point, and that the better the seed the more manure can be 

 profitably supplied, and the more fertilizer profitably pur- 

 chased. There is too close an economy (a false economy) 

 among farmers in the purchase of seed. A farmer who aver- 

 ages but forty bushels an acre with good culture and fair 

 manuring, can well afford to pay ten dollars for the seed for 

 an acre which comes from a variety which habitually yields 

 100 bushels under equivalent circumstances. Yet how is he 

 to know when and where to buy ? This introduces us at once 

 to the question as to the principles which should govern the 

 selection of seed corn. 



In obtaining seed corn there arc two fundamental direc- 

 tions. 1st, select that race or kind which is fitted for your 

 climate, your uses or your market. 2d, select that variety 

 which shall affru'd the most profitable crop. Thus we have 

 three kinds of corn : Sweet corn, which bears a wrinkled 

 seed when mature, and which abounds in glucose and sugar. 

 Field corn, which possesses a kernel of various character, 

 but never wrinkled, whose interior is quite starchy in appear- 

 ance, and whose outer coverings may be either flinty and 

 smooth, flinty and indented at the crown, or neither flinty 

 nor indented, but smooth. Pop corn, whose distinguishing 

 peculiarity is its flinty character with the oil distributed 

 throughout the seed. 



