86 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



venience of harvesting, the balance tips heavily the other way. 

 The greener the grass is cut, the longer the time required to cure 

 it, the more easily it is damaged by showers and heavy dews, and 

 the more readily it will sunburn. Moreover, the weather at that 

 time is not nearly so settled, the ground is not so dry, and none of 

 the conditions are so favorable for hay making as later. Of more 

 importance than all of these, in the corn belt, the farmer is not 

 ready by June 20th to harvest his timothy. He has just finished 

 his wheat or clover, or both, and is then somewhat behind with his 

 corn. It is imperative that his corn be cultivated just at this time. 

 On the average farm, therefore, a larger loss would be sustained 

 by keeping out of the corn at this time than by allowing the timothy 

 to stand until a little later to be harvested. It is simply a question 

 of choice between evils. Loss on one or the other crop must be 

 sustained, and the lesser loss is in allowing the timothy to stand 

 until later to be harvested than to allow the corn to go uncultivated. 



6. KEEPING QUALITIES. 



It goes without saying that the later cut hay will stand more 

 exposure to the weather and will turn rain better in the stack than 

 will the earlier cut hays. 



7. PERMANENCY OF THE STAND. 



This is almost as much of a mooted question as the original 

 one as to which gave the largest yield. The consensus of opinion 

 in the corn belt, however, is that by cutting earlier, the life of the 

 meadow is materially shortened. This has led many farmers to 

 adopt the practice of allowing the plants to become fully mature 

 so that enough seed would be shattered in harvesting to keep up 

 the stand. 



MENDEL'S LAWS AND THEIR APPLICATION IN THE 

 BREEDING OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 



(By W. J. Spillman, U. S. Department of Agriculture.) 



A dozen years ago the subject of heredity was usually not 

 taught in our colleges; we did not know enough to justify teaching 

 it. Even yet the subject is rather poorly organized from a 

 pedagogic standpoint, but there is plenty of subject matter for a 

 strong college course. This matter is rapidly assuming form, and 



