182 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



ill produce like, but on the grains of this fine ear of corn is the pollen that 

 has drifted over and we know only one side of it. The female is the corn 

 and the male is the pollen, and if we pay no attention to it you know the 

 result. It is one of those things that must be considered by all of the farmers 

 throughout the State. 



I said on west or south because the wind will blow the pollen over it- 

 The neighbor's corn might blow over it and it is owing a great deal to the 

 situation of the field. If there was a road and hedges between there would 

 not be much danger of mixing from the other side. We find that if there is 

 a hedge there is no mixing from the north and east, but from south and 

 west about eighty rods would be necessary between the two fields. If the 

 corn is the same variety it does not make much difference, but it is much 

 better if it can get the pollen from the strong stalks. 



As to the comparative value of butts and tips of ears for seed purposes, 

 we find that the butts and tips are not as good as the middle. The middle 

 comes up first, and the tips last because they are a little weakly. The 

 trouble of the corn coming up through the country would lead me to call 

 attention to the serious condition of affairs. People did not pay attention 

 to the seed. It is due to poor seed rather than butts and tips. In favorable 

 seasons a great many times you will see stalks with two large ears on them. 

 I am not certain that it is desirable to plant these ears in the hope of culti- 

 vating that feature. If we get one good ear to a stalk we are doing well. 

 Depth of planting is important. One of the greatest faults this year was 

 farmers planting corn the same as last year. This year it went in deep. 



Perhaps there is no one thing that is so important in our corn crop as 

 the question of a stand and probably there is nothing that is so serious as 

 that we have on an average two-thirds of a stand of corn in this State. The 

 point that I want to investigate is that we need to realize the importance of 

 having a good stand of corn. The greatest cause of our poor corn is the 

 poor stand. We do not get returns that the land is capable of giving. We 

 could have a good stand as well as a poor one. I went through a field that 

 had from ninety-six to ninety-eight per cent stand of corn, and when I came 

 out the man who owned it had come over from across the way and said he 

 had a good stand of corn and it had cost him a lot of work. He said he 

 spent a week testing each ear of that cora and spent another week getting 

 his planter in shape to plant the corn. But he had fine results and showed 

 how well he did his work. 



My experience has for a number of years been that we fell down in our 

 stand. Let us be sure that we follow out these things ourselves. On the 

 Funk farms we tested the corn for many hundred acres of corn and tested, 

 each ear of it, and it certainly can be done here. We lay out the ears on 

 the floor in rows so that they are side by side, and then take a box that 

 would hold the corn from about one hundred ears. We have some sand in 

 the bottom covered over with a cloth. The sand is damp and the cloth is 

 marked off into squares, each one of them numbered so that we can put a 

 kernel from each ear in the squares, making the number of the square cor- 

 respond with the number of the ear from which the kernel was taken. This 

 makes a good general test and we feel that we have a pretty good corn to 

 plant. Sometimes we take three kernels out, one from the tip, one from 

 the butt and one from the middle. This year we took six. In three or four 



