CORN GROWERS ASSOCIATION. 55 



of every neighborhood ascertain by trial the very heaviest cropping 

 corn possible to secure in that particular locality, and once having secured 

 it "hold fast to that which is good." If it deviates too severely from 

 the prescribed standards and score cards, make one calculated to fit it, 

 including anticipated improvements, and hold local shows, invite good- 

 natured friendly rivalry, and have good and profitable meetings. 



Exclusive of Score Card. — Granting now that the farmer is really 

 getting interested in his work and has determined to raise his seed corn, 

 I will outline his procedure in field selection : 



Do not be misled into selecting the biggest, loosest ears in the field 

 for seed. Invariably the very largest ears have the largest cobs, and are 

 also slower in maturing as well as shelling out a poor percentage. The 

 aim should be rather to eliminate nubbins and barren stalks, secure a 

 moderate, quick developer for this locality, select a type neither too flint 

 nor too dent, but sufficiently hard to mature in a marketable condition, 

 solid, compact, bright in color, and flint enough to have a good woody 

 stalk, stiff enough to support its burden and stand erect all winter if neces- 

 sary. The stalk should be short-jointed, thus insuring good leafage, 

 medium height, tapering from the ground to the top rapidly, and should 

 carry the ears uniformly in height, varying in strength of soil and 

 seasonable conditions, from waist high to chin high. Secure the heaviest 

 system of brace-roots possible. A single stalk has been known to ad- 

 here 97 pounds of soil, the brace-root producing a perfect mesh of feed- 

 ing rootlets. I find that the brace-roots have much to do with the yield. 

 Do not select seed from stalks producing two ears. Such corn plants 

 are retrograding toward whence they came, to that extent. The single 

 ear stalk produces the largest weight of shelled corn and is the heaviest 

 yielder, also the double-eared stalk more than doubles the husking bill, 

 which in this locality is 3 cents per bushel. With all these things taken 

 into consideration you have taken the necessary precaution regarding 

 one of the parent stalks of your seed ear. Remember the stalk on 

 which the ear grows is always the female parent of the said ear, and of 

 all the grains thereon. Also remember that in the general fields the 

 chances are against its being the male parent of more than perhaps 20 

 per cent of the grains of the ear, the rest probably being fertilized by 

 pollen from the tassels of other stalks, which accounts for it taking con- 

 tinued, persistent effort in the direction of line-breedmg to produce what 

 we desire. 



Now to be reasonably sure as to the merit of the male parent of 

 voiir seed ear it is neeessary to see to that the seed ear ccnics from a 

 stalk, the hill of which contained no stalk with seriously objectionable 



