EXPERIMENT WITH CORN. T5 



— all grew this year from white kernels, which I shelled with 

 my own hands from a white ear, and planted far off from any 

 other corn, so that there should be none with which they 

 might mix. Here is the result ; and I expected that result, 

 for this reason : My little boy found an ear of white corn, and 

 he planted it in the field, and brought me the crop ; and 

 about half the ears were red, and half white. He assured me 

 that he planted nothing but white. But I wanted to be sure : 

 so I planted the kernels from one white ear and the kernels 

 from one red ear. I examined all the kernels, and planted 

 them myself ; so that there should be no possibility of mistake. 

 Now, I have these ears ; and they vary in their structure, in 

 the form of the kernels, and in their color. Do you not see, 

 that, in that variation, you have the basis of producing any 

 number of varieties ? I doubt not any man could take that 

 ear, and, by careful selection, in ten years he might have a 

 very wide range of varieties of corn. From that one ear he 

 can have large and small corn, red and white corn. You will 

 observe that the mother-stalk of corn in this case has a pecu- 

 liar power, because here is an ear that is all colored red. That 

 color comes from the mother ; that is, the stalk on which it 

 grows. I think it was partly fertilized with white pollen, be- 

 cause these red and white ears were all picked from the same 

 hill, growing side by side, and they ripened at the same time ; 

 and therefore it is fair to infer that those two ears were fertil- 

 ized with pollen of exactly the same kind. You see that ear is 

 red, and this is white, and has a very different form from the 

 other. That shows, that, in this case, the mother, or the stalk 

 upon which the ear grew, had a wonderful effect upon the 

 color. 



In some other instances which I have observed, I have 

 found that the pollen has very much more power than the 

 mother-corn. But I made another discovery, which was quite 

 unexpected to me, and which was to me very interesting, 

 and I think I shall make it so to you, as bearing practically 

 upon our work in agriculture. All these red ears that I hold 

 in my hand were raised from kernels that came from one ear. 

 I selected an ear of red rice-corn, shelled it myself, examined 

 the kernels, and planted them ; and I raised all red corn. 

 But what else did I find? I found certain ears entirely 

 distinct from the others. There is one of them entirely dis- 



