98 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



include the per cent of "stand" of plants, the height and physical pro- 

 portions of the plant, the character and amount of foliage, the position 

 of the ear on the stalk, the length and size of the ear 'shank, the per cent 

 of ear-bearing plants, the time of maturity, the total yield of the row, 

 the average weight of the ears, and the number of good seed ears which 

 the row produces. 



Some of these points can be determined by inspection; some require 

 actual counts and measurements or weights. 



The corn from each of the detasseled rows which have not been 

 rejected by inspection is now harvested. First, all of the ears on a 

 row which appear to be good ears and which are borne on good plants 

 in a good position and with good ear shanks and husks are harvested, 

 placed in a bag with the number of the row, and finally weighed together 

 with the remainder of the crop from one ear to a row ; then select your 

 seed for the next year, on the basis of performance record, from about 

 10 rows which produce the highest yield and the best ears. 



Second: Breed corn for a purpose. If you wish to feed corn, breed 

 and grow high protein corn. If you wish to grow corn for the starch 

 and glucose factories, breed and grow corn the factory wants. 



Third: Until we have facts, don't devote too much time to "fancy 

 points," such as trying to produce kernels on the tip end of the cob, or 

 trying to reduce the size of the cob, or trying to make the tip end of the 

 ear as large as the butt, or pulling out suckers, or doing other things the 

 Ultimate effect of which is unknown. It is not yet known with any de- 

 gree of certainty whether such things are beneficial, injurious, or with- 

 out effect, on the production of the crop. 



And don't feel that you can't breed corn even if you are unable to 

 detassel barren stalks. Last year we had fields with 50 per cent of bar- 

 ren stalks, this year in some fields from that seed we have about five- 

 tenths of one per cent of barren stalks, and these examples fairly illus- 

 trate the tremendous efifect of soil and season and condition of growth, 

 sls- compared with breeding, upon the production of barren stalks. Barren 

 stalks bear no ears, and the whole tendency of Nature's Law is to breed 

 them out, and even without the intervention of man. As a matter of 

 fact, in order to give to barren stalks an equal chance with ear-bearing 

 plants to propagate themselves, we should be obliged to detassel every 

 car-bearing plant in the field. In studying this problem it should be 

 borne in mind that the female parent of the barren stalk was not barren. 



It is probably much more important that we absolutely prevent self- 

 pollination and close-pollination Ijy dctasseling alternate rows, but ever 

 tbis practice is still an experiment. It is very true that exceedingly poor 



