68 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



pollinate ears in these odd rows from individual stalks in the even rows. 

 To perform this task you cap the ear before the silks appear and also 

 cap the tassel before the pollen commences to fly ; and you take the pollen 

 from the capped tassel and apply it to the silk of the capped ear. Call 

 the capped tassel plant No. i and call the capped ear plant No. 2. Now 

 you know that the sire of ear No. 2 is plant No. i. You know 

 exactly what kind of an ear this plant produces ; you know 

 what it has done ; you know the influence that is going to be 

 exerted on the progeny. You can count on what these kernels 

 will bring forth. You cannot perform this fertilization as well 

 as nature can, but you can tell what will be the general conformation of 

 ear, whether she. will be a good one or not. You will have to use dis- 

 crimination in this, but it is very seldom that you will do the work as 

 well as Nature. You will have to make different pollinizations three or 

 four times, say two days apart, about the" last of July or the first of 

 August, usually the first of August ; most all the pollen flies at that 

 period. 



There are million of grains of pollen produced on a little bit of 

 tassel, and this is so fine that you can hardly see it. You must fertilize 

 a good many of these ears from even rows onto odd rows. You cannot 

 tell what will be a good sire or dam ; you must make a good many 

 crosses and you will hit it in some of them, and when you do, you have 

 ^n ear of corn worth any other 500 bushels on your farm. When you 

 find an ear that has been fertilized by a plant that has a breeding ear on 

 it, and that ear is a breeding ear in itself and they both came from 

 champion rows, proven to be champions in yield and other qualifications, 

 you have an invaluable ear if you intend to farm any longer than that 

 year or long enough to get enough corn from that ear to plant your 

 farm. 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. Wing: How far out should the silks be? 



Mr. Funk: You should get to them just as soon as you can after 

 they appear. 



Mr. Wing: Do you think heredity has anything to do with kernel 

 selection? 



Mr. Funk: No, I don't. Every one of these kernels inherits a 

 likeness of the dam. You must take the ear as a unit. The sires may 

 have been good, but their influence upon the dam is imparted to everyone 

 equally, and in this kernel selection you arc going to have to know the 

 sire to make an intelligent selection. 



