258 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



by reason of its inherent capacity for variation, com improvement opens 

 to every intelligent farmer a large and exceedingly fertile field for prac- 

 ticable and profitable investigation and work. 



Corn sustains such a vital relation to the agricultural interests of our 

 country and the world, owing to its value as a food, both for animals and 

 men, that its breeding along practical and scientific lines, is a matter of 

 the greatest importance. Therefore a knowledge and application of the 

 principles of breeding are as important and fundamental to success in 

 producing desirable types of corn as in bringing our various breeds of live 

 stock to a more perfect development. 



BREEDING PLANTS MUCH LIKE BREEDING ANIMALS. 



Within recent years it has been found that the work of improvement 

 in plant life and animal life can be conducted along similar lines by 

 similar methods. 



To the great breeders of the past are the stockmen of the present 

 indebted for the choice animals in their flocks and herds. What would 

 be the type and quality of our live stock today had not Bakewell, Collings, 

 Bates, Booth, Cruickshank, Webb and other breeders during the past 

 century and a half studied animal life and form, and through careful 

 selection, mating and breeding, pursued with persistency during many 

 years, laid such an admirable foundation for our modern live stock 

 industry? 



Successive generations of sheep and cattle, upon a thousand hills, in 

 both hemispheres, have borne the impress of these master breeders' 

 handiwork, in feature, form, quality and other characteristics. 



THE) REWARDS. 



And now we believe that in the fulness of time the day has arrived 

 when the reward is as certain and as great for those who will give their 

 energy and time to the improvement of our farm corps as that which 

 crowned the efforts of the pioneer in live stock improvement. The 

 breeding and improvement of corn is of such great importance and can 

 be carried on so successfully and profitably by the intelligent ~nd en- 

 thusiastic farmer that we deem this work worthy of the most careful and 

 thoughtful study. 



Successful corn breeding is inseparably linked with three all-im- 

 portant factors in crop production. These are fertile soil, proper methods 

 of cultivation, and improved seed. Unless they are the very foundation 

 on which the corn breeders' efforts are based, failure and disappoint- 

 ment must follow. 



MISTAKES OF THE FARMERS. 



The farmers of the great corn belt a generation ago apparently 

 believed that the virgin fertility of the soil was inexhaustible. With 

 little thought, regarding the penalty which te immutable laws of na- 

 ture inevitably exact from every soil robber, these pioneer farmers 

 raised corn after corn, wheat after wheat, or corn after wheat, pro- 



