338 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



however, make this difference — I would give less attention to uni- 

 formity. Forget, for the moment, what the perfect ear of corn 

 is like (if you can forget something you do not know!), and in- 

 clude ears of varying types. The second year these ears will go into 

 the ear-row test, and the 3 or 4 that prove to be the highest yield- 

 ing will, the third year be crossed in the breeding plot. Some of 

 the pedigreed ears grown in the breeding plot will be merged 

 (thrown together), and go into the multiplying plot of the fourth 

 year, and the general crop of the fifth year. Others of those will 

 go into the ear-row test of the fourth year, there to meet new se- 

 lections from the field. The further work is simply a repetition 

 of what I have given you. Each year has its ear-row test and its 

 breeding plot. It is only the latter that requires isolation, for 

 ordinarily we would not recommend the saving of seed from the 

 ear-row plot. 



No detasseling is done in the ear-row test plot, for the reason 

 that it is a poor place to undertake to do cross breeding, even if 

 one knew what ears, or rows, he wanted to cross, which, of course, 

 he does not know until it is too late to accomplish it. The small 

 breeding plot would seem to be the place to make crosses, and for 

 manifest reasons. 



CRITICISMS. 



So far as I am aware, up to the present time, the one great 

 caution which has been sounded in corn breeding has been the mat- 

 ter of inbreeding. The above system would seem to provide pretty 

 thoroughly against it. If one has doubts in regard to this, it will 

 be comparatively easy to introduce new blood into the ear-row 

 test from other breeders of similar strains of corn which, as found 

 worthy, would go into the breeding plots. 



A recent criticism of this system of breeding (from the Con- 

 necticut Station) comes, however, from the opposite direction. It 

 is questioned whether we may not be introducing so many new 

 types from the field, and so frequently, that we shall never succeed. 

 in "isolating the best type." 



Just what effect the introduction of the various types which 

 have answered the requirements as regards vigor, maturity and 

 yield set by the ear-row test, will have, it will be difficult to say. In 

 the case of a self-fertilized plant like wheat, continually enforced 

 crossing of this sort would likely be ruinous. However, with corn, 

 which has been subject to unrestricted crossing for centuries, it 



