Corn Groiuers' Associatio?i. 363 



Indiana at that time, I was a hoosier, and I had plenty of patriotism 

 for my state. Iowa had taken a great deal of pleasure in advertis- 

 ing it far and wide that she held the record on a $150 ear of corn, 

 and I had that state pride to back me up. I know from the corn I 

 have seen here that you have men here able to grow prize-winning 

 corn, and I hope that if you show at the next international you will 

 do as I did. 



Selecting Seed Com — Well, we have a box on our wagon bed 

 when harvesting, and when we find an ear of corn growing on a 

 stalk not too tall, a good growthy stalk— we are not looking for 

 that low down stalk, but a thrifty stalk not too tall, with the ear 

 hanging on the stalk right, no disease about it, no smut — we want 

 that ear of corn. It is worth a great deal. You can hardly place 

 a value on it. Put it in your box and care for it. We gather up 

 for our own breeding three or four times as much as we need, 

 care for it, and in the spring we go through it and select out the 

 best. We keep that ourselves, because we expect to build up our 

 corn from that selection. 



Now in regard to the building up of seed by breeding : I have 

 been carrying that on and have found it successful. We find that 

 the yield representing the different individual ears that were plant- 

 ed run from 57 bushels to the acre with no good seed ears, with 

 4.6 per cent of barren stalks and 7.3 per cent of suckers, as com- 

 pared with 92 bushels to the acre, with 31 good seed ears, and no 

 suckers, and with 106 bushels to the acre with 45 good seed ears 

 and no barren stalks with only 2 per cent of suckers, and we have 

 quite a number of ears that will run over 100 bushels to the acre. 



Now I presume most of you know how this single ear breed- 

 ing system is carried out. I might say that to begin with we se- 

 lect out the desired number of ears, take ten for example. After 

 we have selected those ten individual ears we make composite sam- 

 ples of probably a dozen or two of the best we can find and breed 

 our rows with those. Plant rows 1 and 3 and 5 with our composite 

 samples. Take ear No. 1 and plant in row No. 2, and ear No. 2 

 in row 4, and so on. We go through and detassel the individual 

 ears ; that does away with inbreeding. They cannot fertilize them- 

 selves, and the theory is that we get a stronger plant. I don't know 

 whether we do or not. But understand my general crop is planted 

 from the very best ears of the entire crop. It is a careful selection, 

 and I believe I can do more good and improve my corn quicker by 

 careful selection than by breeding. 



Then comes up the theory of breeding to change the content of 



