422 



The Journal of Heredity 



Table III — A suin))iary by generations {fe))hile line) of the cocfficivnts of inbreeding 

 and rclutionship for the 64 Duchesses, including Duchess I, bred by Charles Colling and [Pur- 

 chased by Bates and the 8 generations bred by Bates. 



Corn and Corn Growing 



Corn and Corn Growing. H. A. 

 Wallace and E. N. Pressman. Pp. 

 253. Price, $2.25. Wallace Publish- 

 ing Co., Des Moines. Iowa. 1923. 

 In the preparation of this book the 

 authors had in mind college instructors, 

 practical corn breeders and farmers. 

 The needs of the two latter classes have 

 been met fairly well, but it is difficult 

 to understand how the book can serve 

 any useful purpose for teachers, lack- 

 ing as it does even a brief bibliography. 

 The treatment of the history, origin 

 and botanical classification is conven- 

 tional — with the exception that the 

 origin of the dent type of grain is 

 ascribed to the hybridization of flint 

 and gourd seed forms. 



The several methods of breeding 

 have been summarized sanely and the 

 conclusion reached that the method of 

 combining inbred strains is the only 

 remaining possibility of increasing 

 yield. 



The space devoted to heredity is 

 largely taken up with a list of heritable 



characters and their symbols furnished 

 by Professor R. A. Emerson and gene- 

 ticists will welcome the appearance of 

 this material in print. The discussion 

 of the subject of heredity, however, is 

 too elementary to interest the teacher 

 and too technical to enlighten the 

 grower. 



An admirable effort obviously has 

 been made to avoid dogmatic statements 

 on debatable points, but there have been 

 some failures as evidenced by the con- 

 clusion that "each row of corn corres- 

 ponds to a spike and the entire ear is 

 a combination of a number of spikes 

 which have grown together," or that 

 "Each ear shank contains as many 

 nodes as the stalk bears above the ear." 



The discussion of cultural practice, 

 harvesting and testing of seed corn, 

 marketing, cost of production and 

 judging, is probably the best to be 

 found in any one publication and 

 should prove of value to corn growers. 



J. H. K. 



