652 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



through the advertisement they will get, to donate the premiums. Do 

 not give money premiums, but let the dealers donate some article that 

 they handle and then average the premiums so the values will be in about 

 the proportion of $5, $2.50, $1 and 50 cents. No definite number of classes 

 need be represented, but make as many classes as your premiums will 

 warrant. The main good that will come from a contest of this kind will 

 be the education of farmers in the different varieties and the inspiration 

 he will absorb by being thrown into contact with other growers who may 

 or may not have better corn than himself. Always get an expert judge 

 (from the State college if possible), to judge the corn and let him give a 

 talk on corn. The picnic gathering and the corn show will work wonders 

 in the improvement of corn during the next few years, and it is one of 

 the main stimuli that urges each and every grower on to greater effort, 

 resulting in permanent good to the community and to the nation at large. 



No breeder can contribute to the permanent improvement of corn and 

 follow the "scoop shovel" method in saving seed corn for future sale. 

 Neither can he afford to sell it shelled, for corn that is not fit to be shown 

 in the ear should never be planted for seed. Not more than 10 per cent 

 of the crop should be kept for seed, depending somewhat on the season. 

 No breeder should sell for seed any corn that he would not plant himself 

 in his general field. 



There should be a corn breeder in every community and it would not 

 be long before there would follow systematic breeding for high yields prac- 

 ticed on many farms. I do not think that it is necessary for the breeder 

 to go further than to breed for high yield of superior quality ustil he has 

 enlisted a large share of his neighbors in the cause. Too many are 

 chasing vague fancies in breeding for show qualities alone. I do not be- 

 lieve, from the results of my experiment plot this year, that high yield 

 and show quality are in any way associated for this reason: My highest 

 yielding row did not yield a single show ear, while the next highest yielder 

 produced ten show ears on fifty-three hils. Two of the low yielding ears 

 produced a like number of show ears, while the finest ear planted in the 

 plot did not reproduce itself once. 



Some breeders are breeding for high feeding values, but I believe that 

 a large amount of the results thus accomplished are soon lost when corn 

 is turned to other men for seed purposes. What the great need for im- 

 provement in corn, at the present time is, is not so much higher feeding 

 value or greater show quality, but higher yields of mature corn, and the 

 only way this can be accomplished is by enlisting the corn breeders in the 

 work and through them reach the man who is raising the small yields. 

 He is the farmer we must stimulate to greater effort if we expect to ma- 

 terially increase the average yields of corn in the corn belt. 



Such then should be the purpose of every corn breeder and, while his 

 methods might be dissimilar to those of other breeders, any system of 

 breeding that will increase the yield of corn will be very beneficial to the 

 community. The great good that will surely come to the breeder, who is 

 devoting his life work for the benefit of his neighbor farmers, will not 

 be that of financial gain, but will be that of the satisfaction of doing good 

 for the benefit of others; and this result alone would well repay him for 

 his work. 



