334 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



Do not hesitate to begin corn improvement because you fear 

 you can not follow all the methods recommended by corn breeders. 

 Begin with a simple method, and you will become interested and 

 gradually improve your method. The best strains that exist were 

 produced and brought to a high degree of improvement by very 

 simple methods. By improved methods they are now being more 

 greatly improved. 



One of the chief and uncontrollable difficulties in corn breeding 

 is the changeableness of the seasons in many sections of the coun- 

 try. If the seasons remained the same, we could in the course of a 

 series of years produce a corn suited to these conditions, but the 

 good effects of years of selection in a section usually dry may be 

 greatly reduced by a few seasons of wet weather. However, these 

 are conditions that are completely beyond our control, and we must 

 make the best of the opportunity. We can increase the ability of 

 certain strains to stand dry weather by breeding them for a series 

 of years in climates that are constantly dry, and the Department is 

 beginning work with this object in view, with the hopes that sources 

 from which well bred seed of highly drought-resisting strains can 

 be obtained may prove of value to corn growers of the semi-arid 

 sections. Some native strains now found in very dry sections 

 possess drought-resistance to a high degree, but they are usuaHy 

 low yielders, or possess undesirable characters, or require too long 

 a growing season to admit of their utilization in the semi-arid sec- 

 tions of the United States. We hope to improve and acclimate some 

 of the best of them. 



Most of the difficulties that have come up in connection with 

 corn breeding work have been brought to your attention, not for 

 the purpose of discouraging any one taking up this work — far from 

 it, but for the reason that those contemplating this line of work 

 may see the difficulties before them, that after once undertaking it 

 they may push forward with a determination to overcome all ob- 

 stacles and be successful in producing the very best corn for their 

 locality. 



It is hoped that before many more years have passed that we 

 shall have a hundred or more careful, honest corn breeders in every 

 State, each a member of his State Corn Breeders' Association and 

 of the American Breeders' Association. The corn breeders' associa- 

 tion of every State should prepare a brief description of the strains 

 of corn recognized by their association, together with the addresses 

 of the breeders of each strain. A copy of these descriptions and 

 addresses should be furnished the Committee on Breeding Corn of 



