Corn Growers' Association. 327 



As many of the strains for the different sections of the United 

 States must necessarily be produced by com growers who are to a 

 greater or less degree engaged in general farm work, it becomes 

 necessary for us to simplify our methods to the greatest extent 

 possible to the accomplishment of desired results. It is one thing 

 to plan on paper a method of procedure, and quite another thing, 

 especially if the method be complex, to put it into practice, especially 

 in connection with general farm work. A vast number of condi- 

 tions, circumstances and causes are to be taken into consideration, so 

 that we can not say that we have reduced com breeding to an exact 

 science. An architect, knowing the size of a proposed building, can 

 estimate the number and size of the stone to be used, etc., and know 

 that the building can be erected exactly in accordance with his fig- 

 uring. We have not reduced corn breeding in all its phases to such 

 a complete mathematical exactness. It will be many years before 

 this is accomplished, if, indeed, it ever is. In the meantime, we can 

 and should greatly improve our different types of com by putting 

 into execution in different parts of Missouri such methods as have 

 been demonstrated to be productive of good results. 



In connection with the com improvement work of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, in co-operation with various corn growers, we 

 have tested several different methods of corn breeding, and in 

 several cases it has been a choice between the simplification of 

 the methods or a partial failure in carrying out the plan success- 

 fully. By some of these methods, which are not too complex for 

 the average careful com grower to practice, we have increased the 

 production per acre at the average rate of 24 per cent each year 

 for the four years the breeding work has been in progress. On 

 the present occasion it will be much more valuable for us to consider 

 the objects to be accomplished and the best means to those ends, 

 rather than consider any fixed and inflexible method of procedure. 

 The details in connection with the work must to some extent bp 

 worked out to conform with the circumstances and possibilities of 

 the farm. 



As the breeder of dairy cows is seeking for the individual of 

 great butter producing capacity, so the corn breeder must seek the 

 individual ear having great power of producing grain. If this 

 power to produce could be determined by inspection, the work would 

 be greatly simplified, and a person possessing the power to select 

 by inspection ears of high production could command a high salary. 



Of two ears exactly alike in appearance one may have the 

 power of producing twice as much as the other, and it is for the 



