22 The Bulletin. 



COMMENTS ON VARIETY TESTS OF CORN. 



The variety tests were conducted this year at the Edgecombe, Iredell 

 and Buncombe farms. The soil at the Edgecombe farm devoted to these 

 tests was Norfolk sandy loam, at Iredell Cecil clay and at Buncombe 

 Porter's loam. To eliminate all inequalities in the character of the land, 

 if any, the designated varieties at the different farms were planted each 

 in separate rows, arranged consecutively, and this plan was repeated 

 from two to four times, varying with the length of the rows in order 

 to give the desired acreage to each variety. The varieties are arranged 

 in Table I in the order of their productivity of shelled corn per acre ; also 

 the rank of stover per acre is indicated in the second column. In Table 

 II are brought together the results of varietal tests obtained at the 

 Edgecombe farm during 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907 

 and 1908, and at Iredell during 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907 and 1908. 

 Results from the testing of the varieties of corn were obtained at the 

 Transylvania farm during 1906 only, and the Buncombe farm has been 

 in operation only one year, 1908. The vigorousness in growth, prolifi- 

 cacy, largeness of ears, percentages of grain and stover, yields, etc., of 

 all varieties tested at the different farms are shown in Tables I, II, III 

 and IV. 



By consulting Table II it will be seen that the differences in yield of 

 shelled corn per acre on the different farms during the period covered 

 by the tests between the variety yielding the highest and the one the 

 lowest in the individual tests have ranged all the way from 6.2 to 26.6 

 bushels of shelled corn at the Edgecombe farm during the past nine 

 years, with the number of varieties in the different tests varying from 

 eight to thirty-six; from 12.1 to 13.5 bushels during six years at Iredell, 

 where from nineteen to thirty-seven varieties were employed, and a dif- 

 ference of 24.8 bushels at Transylvania during 1906, where thirty-four 

 varieties were planted, and a difference of 17 bushels at Buncombe in 

 1908 where twenty-nine varieties were planted. 



Tables III and IV will be found to contain much valuable data, in 

 plain, compact form, relative to the different characters of corn when 

 grown under widely varying soil and climatic conditions. A careful 

 study of these tables should be made by every corn-growing reader. 



Table II also gives the average standing of all the varieties at each 

 farm that have been tested continuously since the beginning of the work 

 in the different localities. The varieties which have averaged the high- 

 est yields of shelled corn at the different farms are: At Edgecombe, 

 Cocke's Prolific, Weekley's Improved, Sanders' Improved and Holt's 

 Strawberry ; at Iredell, Weekley's Improved, Sanders' Improved, Cocke's 

 Prolific and Boone County White. 



NOTES ON VARIETIES OF CORN TESTED IN 1908. 



Cocke's Prolific, from Edgecombe-grown seed, ranked second in 1900, 

 1901 and 1904, first in 1902, 1903, 1905 and 1906, eleventh in 1907 and 

 twenty-first in 1908 at the Edgecombe farm; at Iredell, from Edge- 

 combe-grown seed, sixth in 1904, first in 1905, seventh in 1906, sixth in 

 1907 and fourteenth in 1908 ; second in 1906 at Transylvania, and fifth 



