FIFTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART III 179 



much moldy corn and the worms in as much of it in the time I 

 have been in Iowa county as I did this year when my tenants 

 were husking. 



Prof. Pammel : I thank you, and I hope you will continue to 

 investigate and co-operate with us in this matter. This is a very 

 serious problem, because I think it amounts to not only five or 

 six million dollars, but twenty-five or thirty million dollars, for 

 corn is one of the plants that is unusally free from disease. Some 

 of these other plants have a great many diseases, but I think Iowa 

 owes its greatness and prosperity to the fact that it has been lack- 

 ing in this fungus on the corn and consequent disease and this 

 thing coming on has been a great damage. 



Delegate : I would like to ask if any one variety is affected 

 more than another. I have a field of the yellow dent. A great 

 many of the stalks were broken over, and I thought it was on ac- 

 count of the variety. 



Prof. Pammel : So far as we have been able to learn we find it in 

 the yellow dent and also in other varieties. I saw a field out in 

 the western part of the state, I think it was the Iowa Silver Mine 

 as near as I can determine, that was quite free from disease. An- 

 other thing is that the late corn has less disease than the early 

 corn, and the com that has been planted deep has less disease 

 than the corn planted shallow. 



Delegate : I live in the northern part of the state — in Bremer 

 county. My experience is that the early variety stood up better. 



Mr. Cownie : Is it a fact that there is a great deal less disease 

 and less mold, and less breaking down of corn stalks where only two 

 crops are raised in succession? 



Prof. Pammel: Yes; I would say only one crop. 



Mr. Cownie : It is difficult to raise only one crop in rotation. 



Prof. Pammel: I believe the time is coming when we will have 

 more attention paid to rotation of crops. There is no doubt, as 

 you say, that the longer you grow corn on a field the more it be- 

 comes infested with these parasites. Of course we have not gone 

 far enough in the investigation to tell what the exact status is. 

 I would say, if possible, it should be only one year. The trouble 

 with Iowa farmers is that they do not rotate their crops. It is 

 with them simply a question of growing corn, corn, corn, like the 

 cotton plant in Texas; nothing but cotton year after year, and 

 they introduced the cotton boll weevil down there. I say that was 



