92 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



down to 20 degrees below zero ; and we have had instances where corn 

 will absorb moisture, and a freeze will follow, and the germination is 

 lowered and the vitality is hurt very greatly. We have kept our seed 

 houses at such a temperature during those cold snaps that there is no 

 danger of any such results. We have had differently constructed seed 

 houses; we have tried forced ventilation, and circulation without arti- 

 ficial heat, and we find it does not give us as good results as when we 

 keep the temperature above that very low point. I should say we 

 should not let the temperature get below 10 above zero. Now, in our 

 work, I don't know of an instance where it has gotten below 20 de- 

 grees above, but 10 degrees is low enough for the danger point. 



The government have selected what they call four stations on the 

 farm — one being an open crib, two artificially heated seed houses and 

 one the old type of seed house — that is, the seed house without the arti- 

 ficial heat. They have taken three varieties of corn. They start gath- 

 ering about the middle of September ; they have a man who does no 

 other kind of work on the farm but tiiis ; he gathers twice a week. 

 They have a half bushel of each variety for each station. After gath- 

 ering, the man in charge takes a sample of corn he gathers at that time 

 and also a sample of corn gathered previously, and sends these samples 

 in sealed bottles to Washington, where they are analyzed and the mois- 

 ture content is taken and the germination is taken at that time. You 

 can see that as the season advances this work increases, because he has 

 to take a sample of each gathering he has made previously. Conse- 

 quently, at the end of the season, which last year was about the middle 

 of January, this work means a great deal, takes up all the man's time 

 in taking these samples and sending them to Washington. This year 

 they only made one gathering a week and stopped gathering the middle 

 of December. I will try and give you a few of the results from these 

 different gatherings. 



The germination of the open crib for the gathering up to the 20th 

 of December was 92 per cent; 94 per cent for the seed house without 

 heat, and 96.8 for the heated seed house. The corn gathered in Sep- 

 tember did not germinate as well as the corn gathered in October ; 

 neither did the corn gathered in December germinate as well as the corn 

 gathered either in October or September. After about the middle of 

 January we received our first blow from the north ; it turned very cold, 

 28 degrees below zero. At thai point, the germination in the open crib 

 dropped to 64 per cent ; the germination in tlie unhealed seed house 

 dropped to 86 per cent, and the germination in the heated seed house in- 

 creased to 97 per cent ; the germination in the heated seed house re- 

 mained practically fixed — just as good after the hard freeze as before. 



