156 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



SELECTION OF SEED CORN. 



Few methods of corn breeding have been suggested which are 

 simple enough so that farmers generally will put them into prac- 

 tice. The methods of corn breeding which have been devised by 

 experiment station workers, true, are by no means complex, at 

 least not for experiment station workers, to manipulate. They 

 are, we may conclude, practical for special corn breeders. But 

 the fact that they are too complex for the use of ordinary farmers 

 is testified to by the fact that there are very few farmers in the 

 country who are using such methods. 



It is important that farmers grow their own seed corn or at 

 least use the seed of some variety grown in their neighborhood 

 which is known to give good results. Seed procured from a dis- 

 tance may not be good seed, or may have been grown under en- 

 tirely difl'erent conditions. It is usually shelled so the grower 

 does not know whether it has been shelled from good ears or not. 

 The only way, therefore, of getting good seed is to raise it oneself 

 or buy it from a local man known to be growing a good strain 

 adapted to the locality. 



Following is an outline of a simple method of corn selection 

 which the writer believes to be applicable to general conditions 

 and not too complex for farmers to carry out. The method is 

 not advocated as a careful breeding method, but simply as a method 

 of seed improvement. 



FIRST METHOD OF CORN SEED IMPROVEMENT. 



The grower should select twenty-five of the best ears of corn 

 which he can find by a careful examination of a large quantity of 

 ears of a known good variety. These ears should be solid and 

 heavy for their size, of medium length and of medium diameter. 

 They should have deep kernels and moderately small cob. The 

 kernels should be firmly set on the cob, not moving readily, thus 

 giving a feeling of solidity to the ear. This solidity indicates 

 thorough maturity of ear at husking time. The ear should be 

 cyhndrical, have straight, regular rows and be well filled at butt 

 and apex. The grower should study different ears until he has well 

 in mind the best type of ear present in the variety he is growing 

 and each of the twenty-five ears selected should be the best repre- 

 sentatives of this type. 



If the field of corn is standing from which selections of 

 ears are to be made, the work should be done shortly after the 



