Farmers^ Week in Agricultural College. 137 



(Boone County White), so that the results give very strong indications 

 of the t.ypes of kernels which produce the largest yields. They indicate 

 that very starchy ears are to be avoided, and also those with small 

 germs. 



This experiment indicates the character of the results that are 

 being secured by the experiment stations in their investigations on 

 the corn plant. There is a great deal yet to be learned, but these 

 studies have gone far enough to indicate some of the more striking 

 characters of high yielding ears. It cannot, of course, be said that 

 there is any one best type of ear for all soils and all regions, nor even 

 for all seasons, but such investigations are furnishing to the practical 

 grower the knowledge that he needs in his work of selection. They 

 are showing, too, that there is just as much need to know an ear of 

 corn thoroughly and to study its type and character as there is to know 

 the proper form and type of profitable farm animals. In other words, 

 there is just as much in corn breeding as in animal breeding, and we 

 shall never produce the highest yields of corn possible on our lands 

 until this factor is given its proper attention. 



The modern farmer who would produce maximum corn yields must 

 master many problems. He must know his soil and the methods of 

 maintaining its fertility. He must know the essentials in preparation 

 of his land for a crop not for a single kind of season but for various 

 sorts of seasons. He must iknow those methods of culture and of tillage 

 which will give the plant the maximum of plant food and of moisture. 

 He must know how to select and care for his seed corn — he must be a 

 corn breeder. Not until these principles are mastered and put into 

 practice by the farmers of the corn belt will the yield of this great 

 cereal hQ worthy of the lands which nature has given us. 



SOME FACTORS IN SUCCESSFUL WHEAT PRODUCTION. 



(F. H. Demaree, Agricultural College, University of Missouri.) 



At the present time when there is so much talk about corn, its 

 improvement and production, a word about wheat w^ill not be amiss. 



Because of the comparatively large profit in the crop and the cer- 

 tainty of some return we have had for several years past an excess in 

 the corn acreage Avhich has resulted in a general reduction in yield and 

 injury to the ground from continuous cropping. Perhaps because of 

 the depredations of the chinch bug and Hessian fly a few years ago, 

 our farmers largely lost interest in the wheat crop. Doubtless very 

 few of them stopped to figure the cost of production of the two crops 



