SELECTING SEED CORN. 59 



discard undesirable blood, the weaker plants are detasseled just 

 before flowering, thus preventing their pollen falling upon the silks 

 of choice stalks. Several of the best-appearing plants are now chosen 

 from each centgener, and tested as to weight and quality of grain, etc., 

 that the very best may be secured for mothers of centgeners the fourth 

 year. In following years the same plan is pursued. Seed of any 

 stock which has distinguished itself in the nursery can at any time be 

 taken to the field, multiplied, tested beside standard varieties, and, 

 if it there proves superior in yield and quality, distributed to the - 

 farmers. Varieties which become prominent in the field may be again 

 introduced into the nursery and subjected to rigid breeding; and 

 while in the field, careful field selection should also be carried on. 



Plan No. 2. — A somewhat simpler method is to select superior plants 

 from among the centgeners as grown the first year under Plan No. 1 

 and at once continue the nursery selection as there described for the 

 succeeding years. 



Plan No. 3. — A still simpler plan is to plant and test centengers as 

 in Plan No. 1 and save sufficient seed from the best plants in the best 

 centgeners to plant a field the second jxar. Careful field selection of 

 seed could then be carried on for one or more years and the plan of 

 first-year centgener selection, as in Plan No. 1, could be repeated by 

 again selecting seed from the field. 



Plan No. Jf. — Careful field selection may be made effective, as it 

 has the important advantage of very large numbers to select from. 

 When husking the corn from the standing stalks, as is the practice in 

 Iowa and surrounding States, choose ears from many superior i)lants. 

 By weighing, and by inspecting or analyzing for quality of gluten, 

 eliminate all but the best. In many cases where hand husking has 

 given way to the husking and shredding machines, results in yield of 

 grain per acre may be more rapidly i-eached by breeding for two-eared 

 dent varieties. Where corn is shocked, to be hand or machine-husked 

 later, the seed should be saved before the corn is cut, while the entire 

 stalk can be observed. In order to get the ears from the best plants 

 it is necessary to husk — or at least to strip back the husks from — 

 five times as many large ears as are to be saved for seed. Where two 

 or more fields are planted to the same variety the choicest seed should 

 be planted in one field and seed chosen from there for the next year's 

 planting. 



While it may be practicable to use only one mother plant as the 

 basis of a vjiriety in a close-pollenized species like wlieat, this sliould 

 not be done in a species like corn, whicli is accustomed to free mixture 

 of parental blood. McClure, in Illinois, found that self- fertilizing 

 in corn caused a loss of vigor, and suspected that self-pollination in 

 the cornfield may be responsible for many of the barren stalks so com- 

 monly found ill oui- cornfields. 



