CORN GROWERS ASSOCIATION. 49 



lished as these cattle, that will be as easily told by the average farmer. 

 This can be done. Anyone who ever grew Reid's Yellow Dent can al- 

 most tell at a glance the field -without the sight of the ear. St, Charles 

 White has its characteristics just as these cattle. But all are not grow- 

 ing these or other pure bred corns but a mixture undoubtedly with a 

 view of improving, as some do in live stock breeding, but in each case 

 failure is the final outcome. Many carry on this breeding under a false 

 conception of the whole and in a few years change seed because of run 

 out qualities. Our great plant breeders cross varieties to get sports. 

 These sports in a majority of cases are very inferior and only one in 

 thousands is equal or superior to the parent plant. We are getting to 

 understand better the laws that have bettered live stock than of years back. 

 It is this : Closer selection in varieties. The deterioration in seed com 

 is not in in-breeding so much as from faulty selection or out-crossing. 



At these corn shows corn has been on exhibition that was in the 

 hands of one grower twenty or more years and is prized as pure, while 

 in these ten ears two or three cobs were of a different color from the 

 class. Indeed, these two red cobs in a sample where the others were 

 white is a poor pedigree of twenty years' standing.' The greatest pedi- 

 gree is in the samples themselves, and uniformity almost to a fault is 

 what all must breed. So if we in the State can have standards, we 

 have gained much. This will benefit the farmer if by pestilence, storm 

 or accident the seed is lost ; he will know where to get seed acclimated, 

 whereas if sending north or east several years are lost with getting up 

 the yield or quality settled to his localitv. 



Many from other states have bought Missouri corn for seed, but as 

 all Missouri corn is not the same, it is proper for us to get types that 

 can give us a note of standing. Our new members should, in buying 

 seed corn, buy some of the standards that are Hsted as Missouri corn. 

 So if you wish to make sales of seed corn later, there will be but one 

 standard to advertise — ^yourself. The classes already outlined embrace 

 almost all the principles of good corn, and, as in all new corn, extrava- 

 gance is often indulged in which you cannot afford. 



Since the organization of the Missouri State Corn Growers' Asso- 

 ciation, Farmer seed-corn men have become more popular. Ear-corn is 

 taken in preference to shelled with an advance price. Last year one 

 Missouri seed corn grower, from i6 acres, grew two hundred bushels 

 seed ears and sold at two dollars per bushel; but had to return more 

 than a hundred dollars "with regrets, out of seed." There is room for 

 many such in our State, and there is no more lucrative business than rais- 



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