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IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



posed. The experiments of the College show that corn, which shrunk 

 twenty-six per cent during the year in a small crib, had lost on January 1st, 

 but eight per cent in vveight. This corn was put into the crib on October 

 27th. 



Last spring thousands of fields in Iowa were planted with weakened seed. 

 This together with the cold spring and frequently too deep planting, gave 

 poor stands and necessitated much replanting. 



The importance of selecting thirty or forty of the choicest ears, planting 

 them on one side of our earliest planted field, can not be too strongly empha- 

 sized. Out of this seed patch, the seed for next year's crop should be 

 selected not later than October 20th, and hung up at once where it can dry 

 out thoroughly before any severe freeze. 



Fig. 4. 



No. 1 shows worthless kernels that refused to grow under favorable con- 

 ditions. On an average nineteen out of every one hundred kernels of all 

 the samples sent in for germination test, up to March 6th, are of this class, 

 and should be discarded. 



No. 2 shows weak kernels, which, if put into the ground under unfavora- 

 ble conditions, when it is cold and wet, will probably fail to grow at all or 

 give weak stalks. Twenty-one kernels in every one hundred give weak 

 germination. 



No. 3 shows strong, vigorous germination; of the 2,000 samples sent in, 

 only sixty kernels in every hundred, on an average, showed similar vigor in 

 germination. 



These sixty strong kernels if planted alone on a given area, would, doubt- 

 less, produce more corn than if planted along with the twenty-one weak ones; 

 for the weak ones producing a weak growth, would use up the light and the 

 air and fertility, which would otherwise go to the advantage of the stronger 

 stalks. Another objection is the fact that the stronger ears would be more 

 or less fertilized by the pollen from the undesirable stalks. 



