Farmers' Week in Agricultural College. 



209 



acclimatization. The show corn, while productive where it has been de- 

 veloped, was at a disadvantage when grown at the Nebraska Experiment 

 Station, and gave a rather poor yield. If this seed had been grown at the 

 Station it would have improved in yield. The seed secured from our best 

 growers, while acclimated to Nebraska, was grown 50 or 75 miles from 

 the Station and was not fully adapted to local conditions. However, 

 the local varieties of corn grown within three or four miles of the 

 Station, being fully acclimated, were capable of making their best yields. 

 There is no evidence that with any of our cereal crops — corn, wheat or 

 oats — that there is any such a thing as "running out" of a strain, due 

 to long continual growth in the neighborhood. Results secured by ex- 

 changing spring wheat with the North Dakota Experiment Station and 

 the Minnesota Experiment Station, covering several years, showed in 

 practically every case an advantage for the home grown seed. 



IMPROVEMENT OF CEREALS BY BREEDING AND SELECTION. 



It would seem, therefore, that after a thorough search had been 

 made of the best varieties of the region, and these varieties fuUy ac- 

 climated, that no further increase in productiveness could be secured 

 by this means unless some system of selection can be found for improv- 

 ing the variety. We call this method of improvement plant breeding, 

 and I wish to show some data giving result of our plant-breeding work 

 with corn and wheat. 



In 1903, we selected about 80 ears of corn and planted each to a 

 separate row. There was a great variation of yield in each row, but 

 about 17 of the rows yielded 90 bushels or more per acre. The corn 

 from these rows was kept for seed and six ears selected from each one. 

 The six ears from each high yielding row were. again planted, an ear 

 to a row, and selection continued in the same way the second year. This 

 method of selection was kept up for five years and then the selected corn 

 which had been improved by the ear to row method was carefully com- 

 pared with the original corn from which the ears had been selected for 

 two years. The results are shown in the following table : 



This shows that the corn selected by the ear to row method had 

 made an average gain of 8.3 bushels per acre over result of selection. 



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