EFFORTS TO INCREASE FOOD RESOURCES 



Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station at New- 

 Haven put paper bags on the ear shoots of corn before the 

 silks appeared in order to prevent natural pollination. Bags 

 were also put on the tassels to collect pollen. At the right 

 time the plants' own fertilizing particles were dusted on the 

 protected flowers. This operation, repeated year after year, 

 resulted in the closest kind of inbreeding. 



Most farmers know that inbreeding is injurious both to 

 plants and animals ; they could have told these scientists that 

 they were wasting their time — in fact, worse. They were 

 right; production went steadily down. After a few genera- 

 tions of this self-fertilization, many plants were so weak that 

 they died before reaching the tasseling stage. Those that did 

 live were small and feeble. Instead of the large, fat ears that 

 corn should have, only nubbins were harvested. 



But these men were interested in something more than 

 yield. They wanted to know why the yields went down, 

 how far they would be reduced, and in what way the 

 inbred plants would differ from naturally pollinated 

 plants. Then, too, what would happen when these inbred 

 plants were crossed with each other? They tried crossing 

 and were themselves astonished at the vigorous growth and 

 increased productiveness of the intercrossed plants the very 

 next year after crossing. They noticed, also, that the crossed 

 plants of any one combination of inbred parents were 

 closely alike; each plant grew to the same height, silks 

 and tassels appeared at the same time, and every plant, when 

 rightly grown, had good ears on every stalk. A row of 

 this hybrid corn looked like a line of West Point cadets on 

 parade. The uniformity was an indication of the high pro- 

 duction from every plant, a very important factor in the 

 extraordinary high yields that have since been obtained 

 from this crossed seed. 



This was the kind of seed that Wallace offered to com- 

 pare in productive value with the best that the corn farmers 



[361] 



