486 



Missouri Agricultural Report. 



rangements for me to go to Columbia. "Farmers' Week" began 

 the 4th of January. I arrived there the second, and received quite 

 a bit of inspiration from hearing those who had been there before 

 me and put some theories into practice and had results worth 

 while. I gathered a great many new ideas before the course ended 

 and went home expecting to put them into practice. I thought we 

 should know which variety of oats and wheat yielded highest on 

 our particular soil, so I decided we would make the variety test ex- 

 periment on them. 



In March I wrote Professor Miller, as he had taught some of 

 my classes while in Columbia, asking him to send me eight ears 

 of Reid's Yellow Dent. It had proved to be the highest yielder in 

 our test plat of varieties and we wanted a start of the seed which 

 was good. I received the eight ears and planted them to them- 

 selves, each in a separate row. While they grew I noticed a marked 

 difference in their growth and size of stalk. At harvest time the 

 product from each row was weighed and ear, or row. No. 4 produced 

 27 bushels per acre, and ear No. 7 produced 38 bushels. 



From the eight ears I sold 10 bushels of seed and saved enough 

 to plant our entire crop. After getting such results as this, I 

 thought it wise to make the same test again. The next season 

 we used 25 ears in the way shown in the plat except we used the 

 outstanding high yielders to plant the following season in an 

 isolated plat. 



PLAT. 



Ear No. 1 



ck 



ck 10 11 12- 



24 25 ck 



1912. Yield in Ini. 



(>7.2 — — — 



51.8 44.8 



From a map of the plat you will see that a row 40 hills long 

 was laid off for each ear, every sixth row being a check row used to 

 determine the difference in the soil's fertility so if there were 

 extra rich spots no ear would receive this as credit on its yield. 

 Only a small part was planted from each ear. The remaining part 

 of each ear was reserved so that those that yielded very high 

 might be planted in a plat isolated from any other corn, so they 

 would not be mixed with any other low yielders. This season, 

 1910, the minimum yielder was No. 12, which produced 35.5 

 bushels. The maximum was No. 1, which produced 58.1 bushels 



