8 THE SEED-CORISr SITUATION". 



conditions of that locality, provided seed is saved each normal season 

 from the best-producing individuals. 



EARLIER SELECTION OF SEED CORN. 



Great progress has been made in recent years in a more general 

 adoption of fall selection instead of spring selection of seed com, but 

 there is room for still greater progress. Nearly all farmers should 

 select their seed corn tiiree or four weeks earlier than they do. In 

 the South seed corn should be selected and dried during August, in 

 the North early in September, and no prudent corn farmer anywhere 

 in the United States will allow October 15 to pass without having 

 sufficient seed for at least one year's planting stored where it can not 

 be injured by unfavorable or unexpected weather conditions. Where 

 a seed patch is not maintained and seed must be selected from the 

 general field it should be selected before the corn is cut and shocked. 

 Where com is husked from the standing stalk the seed should be 

 selected several weeks before the corn is dry enough to husk and crib. 



It is doubtful whether the governor of each of the corn-producing 

 States could issue a more valuable proclamation each year than one 

 proclaiming a suitable week for all farmers of the State t.o gather and 

 dry seed corn. 



As an excuse for not having good seed it is customary to state that 

 the season was exceptional. Such seasons will continue to occur, 

 and the only way to escape loss is by being prepared each year 

 for an exceptional yenv. Last year was a very adverse season in 

 South Dakota, Nebraska, and some other corn States; consequently 

 this spring it is necessary to import seed corn into these sections. 

 Nevertheless, well-acclimated and unquestionably higher yielding 

 seed could have been selected last September from fields in these 

 same States. This statement is made with full knowledge of the 

 facts, because at that time such seed was selected and dried in those 

 very sections and is now practically perfect and germinates 100 per 

 cent. Having personally assisted in the gathering and drying of 

 seed com in these sections in September, the Avriter knows that large 

 quantities of seed could have been saved at that time from the same 

 and many other fields. Unfoi-tunately, hoAvever, most farmers post- 

 poned the selection until freezing Aveather, Avith the consequence that 

 the seed they selected Avill not yield Avell and most of it Avill not even 

 germinate well. It is not the season so much as the man. 



Mr. Edgar Brown, in charge of the Seed Laboratory of the United 

 States Department of Agriculture, has reported an average germi- 

 nation of 81 per cent for 1,708 samples of corn intended for seed in 

 the spring of 1012 and obtained from farmers of various States, as 

 shoAvn in Table I, 



[Cir. 95] 



