28 Department of Experimental Plant-Breeding. 



stover. Selection experiments have been started with three varieties, 

 Pride of the North, Funk's Ninety Day, and Reid's Yellow Dent, lo- 

 cated respectively at Aurora, Ballston Lake, and Ithaca. The results 

 this year have been of special interest with reference to the degree of 

 carliness. In each case the plant-to-row method was used and in some 

 progenies at the time of husking practically all of the ears were fully 

 ripe, while in many other progenies almost every ear was yet soft and 

 undented. This great variation in degree of earliness and the proof 

 of the transmission of the character shows, as would be expected, that 

 considerable advance can be made in this direction. 



Scientific studies. — It is of great importance in corn-breeding that 

 all characters in any degree correlated with high yield and earliness 

 be discovered in order especially that breeders may be able at the 

 blooming period to recognize probable good yielding and early plants 

 through the correlated characters. If such correlations could be found 

 the breeder would be able more intelligently to select the parents to 

 be mated in pedigreed breeding and could doubtless make much more 

 rapid progress than is now possible. 



A statistical study of the most easily recognizable character is 

 being made with two races. Pride of the North and Funk's Ninety 

 Day, with the hope of securing some valuable data of this kind which 

 will be of service to corn-breeders. The information should also be of 

 some value as showing the present range of variation in the various 

 characters of the races used as now grown. 



Cereal investigations. 



In the breeding and improvement of cereals a co-operation has been 

 arranged with the Bureau of Plant Industry of the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture, which will permit the work to be prosecuted 

 on a rather more extensive scale than would otherwise be possible. 

 These experiments started in the spring of 1907. 



Oat experiments. — The oat-breeding work is being conducted with 

 two main aims in view. First, to secure better yielding strains, and 

 second, to produce hardy winter oat varieties. In the first instance, 

 the foundation for the work was furnished by the Department of 

 Agriculture placing with the Station seed of a large series of oat hy- 

 brids and selections made by Professor Norton in Illinois, together 

 with samples of various standard oat varieties. These are beinp- 

 grown, selected and tested with reference to their adaptabilitv to 

 New York conditions, and their comparative value in connection with 

 standard oat varieties. Some of the strains produce exceptionally 



