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THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



PRIZE WINNERS. 



workers who have successfully improved 

 Indian corn, or in fact any other of 

 Mother Nature's crops. We should like 

 to tell from time to time of achievements 

 in horticulture and agriculture. For this 

 purpose we cordially invite our readers to 

 keep us informed as to those who are ac- 

 complishing results in dealing with na- 

 ture. We believe in the love for nature. 

 We believe in the educational training ob- 

 tainable through careful observation of 

 the interesting details of nature ; but 

 more than all this, we believe that the 

 man or woman, boy or girl, who is mak- 

 ing closer the relation between nature 

 and humanity is doing service that should 

 receive honorable mention. We should 

 like to have a hall of fame for those who 

 are accomplishing results that are worth 

 while in the cultivation of nature. 



Ear in Corn Tassel. 



Every student of corn knows that 

 the plant is a grass and, like most of 

 the smaller grasses, originally grew its 

 seed in the head. That habit still lin- 

 gers, as one might say, in the very 

 "blood" of the plant and occasionally 

 some kernels are produced in the tas- 

 sel, but it is seldom that a plant so 

 far forgets itself as to revert in its 

 evolutionary history and develop a 

 modern sort of ear in the tassel; when 



the kernels do grow in the tassel they 

 are usually not ear-like. But fact is 

 stranger than fiction. A specimen from 

 Mr. H. E. Zimmerman, Mt. Morris, 

 Illinois, shows that a well developed 

 ear has abandoned its ordinary position 



THE E.AR IN THE TASSEL 



