36 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



stations for determining the matter. For instance tlie most common 

 method is to plant each selected ear in a row to itself on land that is 

 perfectly uniform in fertility and general characteristics, give each ex- 

 actly similar treatment and then determine the highest yielding row. Ex- 

 periments at our own station the past year show that when tested in 

 this manner some ears will produce twice as much as others, while ex- 

 periments at various stations have given similar results. Should we 

 take seed corn as we find it in a farmer's crib and make this same test 

 we would find a much greater difference. The Iowa station made a 

 test recently of the productive power of a series of corn samples gath- 

 ered from farmers in the state of the kind which they were to use for 

 planting that particular season. The result showed a variation in yield 

 of frem 8 to 91 bushels per acre. Some of this was undoubtedly due 

 to poor germination and a consequent poor stand ; but a large part was 

 undoubtedly due to the natural character of the seed. Instances have 

 come under my notice where ears planted thus in rows and with stands 

 approximately uniform have shown an extremely great variation. Now 

 since each ear possesses an individuality the same as an animal and is 

 possessed of the power of transmitting good or poor qualities to its off- 

 spring, the possibilities of selection for the good ears in a breeding plot 

 of this sort is indicated. To be sure we do not have a case strictly 

 analogous to that of animal breeding as the ear is a collection of indi- 

 viduals and we usually do not know the character of the male parent 

 which fertilized each particular grain. So far as the mother is con- 

 cerned, however, or the plant on which the ear grew we do have the 

 case exactly similar, and herein lies tlie most important means at our 

 hand for exercising a selection, in the case of artificial pollination of 

 ears by pollen from a stalk the character of which is known we may 

 have a case almost exactly alike that of the animal breeder, but these 

 methods in corn breeding require time and some expense so that they 

 are necessarily the work of the experiment station or the scientific corn 

 breeder. Not that the average farmer has not an abundant opportun- 

 ity for improving his corn in the exercising of care in selection, but for 

 the most painstaking and thorough work the average farmer has neither 

 the time nor the means to devote to it. 



There are several methods now being eniploj'ed by the various ex- 

 periment stations in the corn belt which thus seek to improve the yield 

 and quality of the product of our corn fields. A common one is that 

 which has already been mentioned, commonly known as the row method 

 of selection. A perfectly unifonn plot of ground is selected of sui- 

 ficicnt size to give a length of about 100 hills to the row and a width 



