622 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



This short course school is held during the mid-winter vacation when 

 the instructors of agriculture can devote their full time to the work, and 

 the farmer finds it most convenient to get away from his farm and his 

 v/ork. This year it was planned to hold the school in the new octagonal 

 fireproof judging pavilion just completed for this work. 



Beginning classes were formed in both stock and grain judging. 

 These classes met in the new pavilion while the advanced classes in 

 stock judging met in the round pavilion, and the advanced classes in corzi 

 judging in the demonstration room of the new Farm Mechanics Hall. The 

 number enrolled in the beginning classes taxed the capacity of the room 

 provided, and if the enrollment increases next year as it has the past 

 two years. Professor Holden and Professor Kennedy will be put to the 

 test of finding a place to hold their classes. 



This year the regular enrollment approached six hundred, while the 

 attending visitors for a day to three days at a time numbered one hun- 

 dred and fifty more. Nearly every county in the State was represented 

 with from one to a dozen representatives from fifteen different states and 

 Canada. 



"SVORIv IX CORN JUDGING. 



In the advanced class, the study of standard varieties of corn raised 

 in Iowa was taken up. First, a history of the variety, then the study of a 

 typical sample, followed by scoring practice on samples of this variety, 

 using a typical sample as a unit of comparison. Through the courtesy 

 of manufacturing firms, many planters, representing both the rotary and 

 edge drop system of planters, were used, through which white and yellow 

 varieties were given the planter test. This enabled the class to judge 

 the corn and follow it through the planter test. 



In this class the principles of corn breeding, harvesting, storing and 

 shipping seed corn were discussed. The lectures on corn breeding were 

 given by Professor Holden and proved most interesting and helpful to the 

 one hundred or more corn growing farmers who desired to learn the 

 essential principles of breeding. 



The block and individual row system of planting breeding blocks, 

 the method of selecting, sorting, marking and recording seed ears was 

 fully explained. 



In the breeding classes, the individual ear was studied, then a group 

 of ten ears, and next a test in the selection of the three best seed ears in 

 order of rank was made. In the afternoon, both advanced and beginning 

 classes met together in the pavilion, spending one of the two hours as- 

 signed to each division for class period, in general discussion upon some 

 one of the many important topics related to the growing of field crops and 

 especially corn. 



President A. B. Storms, Prof. C. F. Curtiss, Prof. P. G. Holden, Dean 

 Henry of Wisconsin, Editor Henry Wallace of Des Moines, Mr. E. C. Furs- 

 man, a veteran corn raiser of Illinois, and Iowa's corn decorator at St. 

 Louis, Mr. S. C. Scofield, of the Department of Agriculture, Washington, 

 D. C, Prof. W. M. Hays, of the University of Minnesota, Mr. L. S. Ker- 

 rick, Illinois' great Angus breeder, Mr. Joe Wing of the Breeders' Ga- 



