BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTKY. 295 



this work into such districts as are poorly supplied with reliable 

 and productive varieties. The field tests recently conducted by 

 county corn improvers and breeders' associations in cooperation with 

 the bureau have proved that such organized tests attended with pub- 

 lic observations and field-day exercises are of more profit to a com- 

 munity than very many tests by individual farmers with oppor- 

 tunity for few to observe. Plans are being made to- give all possible 

 assistance to these tests and of organizing competitive corn-improve- 

 ment clubs with awards to those increasing the producing power of 

 their corn most rapidly. Plans are also under consideration for 

 making every corn farmer as fully aware of the profits of seed-corn 

 preservation as are those who have built seed-corn houses and 

 thereby increased their crop enough in one year to pay several times 

 the expense of building. 



Important problems that can be solved by well-planned investiga- 

 tions each year financially affect every corn grower. Since it has 

 been demonstrated that the degree of dryness and of temperature at 

 which seed corn is held during the winter greatly influences its pro- 

 ductiveness, it is very important to determine the exact conditions 

 that result in highest productiveness. "Bj proper investigation other 

 first-generation crosses can be discovered which, like U. S. Cross No. 

 182. will prove of very great value in certain localities, and plans and 

 methods for discovering such crosses and demonstrating their superi- 

 ority have been adopted for various districts. Plans are made to 

 extend the investigations of the insect-resistant, disease-resistant, and 

 drought-resistant characters of corn and to determine the most prac- 

 ticable substances for preventing insect and fungous destruction of 

 germinating seed corn. 



TOBACCO INVESTIGATIONS. 

 GENERAL FEATURES OF THE INVESTIGATIONS. 



The tobacco investigations of the bureau in charge of Dr. W. W. 

 Garner have been continued largely along the lines followed in the 

 past, although some additional problems of importance have been 

 taken up. Experiments and demonstrations have been carried out in 

 the more important tobacco districts of the States of Massachusetts, 

 Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Maryland. 

 Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas. 



The more general features of the work are the improvement in 

 yield and quality by breeding and selection combined with system- 

 atic variety tests, the determination of the plant-food requirements 

 of the crop in the various tobacco districts, and the development of 

 the best systems of crop rotation applicable to tobacco culture. Some 

 or all of these problems have been taken up in each of the States men- 

 tioned and while in every case the work is shaped to meet local re- 

 quirements the results will afford a sound basis for developing im- 

 proved methods of tobacco culture of more or less general applica- 

 bility. Special laboratory and field investigations relating to curing, 

 fermentation, the control of diseases, etc., are taken up in those dis- 

 tricts where most needed. 



For the purposes of sound and effective practical demonstrations in 

 improved methods it is recognized that, because of the fact that the 



