440 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



times, and advanced approximately $350,000 to serve as a revolving 

 fund for the purchase of seed corn. Their action resulted in securing 

 enough seed at an early date for the production of an almost normal 

 crop. During peace times, it is extremely doubtful that a like fund could 

 be made available. Should the same weather conditions result as in 

 the fall of 1917, and find the same methods followed in selecting seed, 

 Michigan farmers would face a much greater loss than was experienced 

 in 1918. 



The wide spread field selection of seed corn in the fall and the proper 

 storing of early selected ears would make such a calamity to the com 

 crop, as was threatened in 1917, impossible, and would greatly increase 

 annual returns. It is sincerely hoped that a number of favorable seasons 

 will not lull Michigan farmers into a sense of false security, and that the 

 practice of field selection and proper storing of seed corn will be more 

 wide spread than it was even in the fall of 1918, following the great 

 seed corn famine. 



No two factors will go further toward immediately increasing the 

 yields of corn in Michigan, than the proper selection and handling of 

 seed corn. 



SELECTING AND CURING SEED CORN 



The common practices of selecting seed corn from the crib or when 

 husking the general crop are too costly to be continued. Such corn 

 usually germinates poorly and may result in poor stands. It is ex- 

 tremely important that the most mature and highest yielding corn of 

 each season's crop be selected in the field and properly stored to furnish 

 seed for planting the next spring. 



ADVANTAGES OF FIELD SELECTING SEED CORN 



The great advantage of selecting seed corn in the field before the crop 

 is harvested lies in the fact that mature corn is secured and that a study 

 of the plant on which the ear grew and of its environment can be made. 

 In selecting from the shock or from the crib little is known of the par- 

 ent plant or the conditions under which it grew. Corn which has stood 

 in the shock or in the crib is more or less seriously injured by the de- 

 velopment of molds or by freezing while in a moist condition. 



It has been demonstrated that the corn plant is easily altered by 

 proper selection methods. Yield, time of ripening, position and charac- 

 ter of ear and even feeding value can be changed within wide limits. 

 Field selection and proper storing as compared with prevailing selection 

 methods will usually increase the yield of ordinary corn varieties from 

 seven to ten bushels per acre. Enough corn to plant twenty acres can 

 be easily field selected in a day's time by one man. With a seven-bushel 

 increase per acre the corn grower who plants twenty acres of corn will 

 be rewarded with 110 bushels in his next season's crop or at present 

 prices $140 a day or more for his labor in field selecting and storing — 

 admittedly a profitable day's work. 



