302 Missouri AgHcultwal Report. 



two or three thousand dollars, and was worth it, and breeders were 

 willing to pay that price, that a bushel of pure bred wheat, which 

 had been carefully selected through generations previous to the pro- 

 duction of this bushel, was worth, in comparison to the ordinary 

 wheat, just as much as the fancy bred hog was worth in comparison 

 to the ordinary hog. 



There is no question but that as we get these varieties separ- 

 ated, as we get them pure in type, we have something better than 

 the average — something that is far better than the farmers of the 

 State are growing. The distribution of better seed in Kansas has 

 already given good results, and many compliments have been re- 

 ceived from the farmers regarding the greater productiveness of 

 seed grain sent out from the station. 



Thus the work of the Experiment Station is not only to test 

 varieties, but to breed crops, increase the seed and get it out among 

 the farmers of the State. In the last two years the Agronomy De- 

 partment of the Kansas Station has sold and distributed some 1,500 

 bushels of good seed wheat, several hundred bushels of good seed 

 oats and barley, and five or six hundred bushels of seed corn of good 

 varieties — not pure-bred, but better than the average. Meanwhile, 

 we are attempting to still further improve these better varieties by 

 breeding and selection. I will not go into the details of the work 

 along that line. You will have in this meeting the subject of corn- 

 breeding presented to you, and the "ear-rov/" method of breeding 

 will be discussed, by which the breeder is able to secure a purer 

 type of corn by selecting the individual ear and making it the foun- 

 dation of the new and improved strain, and thus increase the yield 

 and improve the quality and type of that corn. Also, the same 

 kind of work may be done with wheat, Kaffir corn, with sor- 

 ghum, with oats and barley, and almost every crop the farmer 

 grows. 



At the Kansas Station we are breeding several of these crops 

 by the "head-row" method. The best heads of wheat are selected in 

 the field — heads that are alike and pure in tj'pe. Each head is 

 shelled separately, and only the grain of the better type and quality 

 is saved for planting. By this method of selecting like heads of 

 apparently the best type and planting this seed in separate rows, we 

 hope to be able to select the individuals which will be the founders of 

 a purer, higher producing strain of wheat, better adapted to our 

 conditions of soil and climate than the average wheat from which 

 the selections were made. You see there is a great field in this 

 plant-breeding work, which we are only just touching in the sub- 



