372 Bulletin 313 



justify their more general use. The simplest methods for many crops, 

 which we are able with our present knowledge to recommend, are too 

 complex to justify their general use by farmers. Indeed, the simple 

 methods of breeding that are generally recommended for corn are little 

 more than an extended method of selecting good seed; they go one step 

 further, however, in testing the yielding capacity of the individual through 

 a comparison of its progeny and selecting the seed from the progeny of 

 the best yielders. From the length of time and the cost of the timothy 

 experiments, the writer has until recently thought it impracticable for 

 farmers themselves to undertake any work in the improvement of the 

 seed of their timothy. In carefully considering the results of the ex- 

 periments, however, he has come to the conviction that farmers can 

 improve their timothy by a method as simple and as easy of execution 

 as the methods used by many fanners in corn breeding, and that they 

 can be far surer of obtaining results of value than with corn. 



The following simple method of improving timothy seed is thus 

 recommended for the use of farmers who desire to Improve their 

 timothy crop: 



1. Manner oj procuring seed for starting a selection. — When timothy is 

 ripening, go over a field carefully and choose a number of good, ripe seed 

 heads from tall, robust culms, which appear to come from good plants. 

 Also, look for exceptionally good plants along the roadsides and fences, 

 and wherever good plants are found preserve good heads for seed. In 

 this way choose good seed heads from at least ten or twenty good 

 plants. Thresh the seeds from these heads, keeping separate the seeds 

 from each plant, and sow them immediately. No time should be lost. 



2. Planting the seeds. — As soon as the seed from the selected heads 

 has been threshed, take small boxes, about 2 feet long by i 1/2 feet wide 

 and 4 inches deep, and fill them with good soil from some location where 

 there has been no timothy and thus where there is little likelihood of 

 timothy seed being in the soil. Pack the soil down in the box slightly 

 and smooth off the top, removing all lumps. Now plant the seed from 

 the different heads in short rows in the boxes, placing the rows about 

 2 to 2 1/2 inches apart. Be careful to keep the seeds from each head 

 or plant separate from one another and plainly labeled. In planting the 

 seed, open shallow furrows in the soil and sow the seed in the furrows 

 by hand, arranging so that the seed will be covered about one fourth 

 of an inch deep when the dirt is pushed back in the furrows. Sow the 

 seed rather thickly in the rows, but expect to thin out later so that the 

 plants will stand about i inch apart in the rows. Sow enough seed so 

 that when properly thinned there will remain about 50 plants from each 

 of the selected heads. 



