2 24 NEW JERSEY AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE 



THE "STOWELL-BLACK MEXICAN"CR0SSES. 



A block was planted with the cloudy grains of the above cross, 

 that is, there were only slight indications of the black color. As 

 a result of this, a set of quite uniform ears was obtained in which 

 a majority of the grains appeared to be without color, a few 

 were nearly full black, and the remainder carried more or less 

 color. It remains to be seen just what may come from a contin- 

 ued selection of the cloudy grains for several generations. An 

 ear of this strain is shown at ii. 



The ears 12 and 13 are representatives from the cross of 

 ■"Black Mexican" upon "Stowell's Evergreen," the whole crop 

 showing quite uniformly the 75% black or some degree of color 

 and 25% of white grains. 



Plant variation was manifest in many ways that do not ad- 

 mit of representation by photography. As an example, some 

 ears as at 14, showed a strong tendency to fliintiness in which 

 there were practically no sweet grains but all were more or less 

 starchy whether white or dark. 



In the same block were a few ears (15) that showed particu- 

 larly the influence of pollen from a block of yellow field corn 

 grown some distance away. Plants with those ears were ones 

 that bloomed late and at the same time as the field crop. Here 

 an indeterminate number of the grains are truly flinty; some of 

 them yellow ; and others a dull variable gray. These latter 

 have both the black of the mother and the yellow of the pollin- 

 ator, the former nearly disguising the latter. The flint grains 

 may stand between those fully sweet and wrinkled and illustrat- 

 ing a type of seed character that is transferred by the pollen in 

 distinction to that of flintiness that develops in sweet corn as 

 an ear (or plant) character, as illustrated in the ears at 9 and 14. 



FLINTINESS IN SWEET CORN. 



The "Malanio" sweet corn has for years exhibited a strong 

 tendency, in certain plants, to become flinty, and last year it was 

 shown that many ears from selected flinty grain grown by them- 

 selves produced a large percentage of nearly solid flinty grains. 



During the present season, three isolated blocks of "Malamo" 

 were planted, namely, (i) with typical sweet grains; (2) with 

 flinty grains from a nearly flinty ear; and (3) a block with three 

 rows of the first and two alternating rows of the second from 

 tlie same packets as above respectively. Unfortunately the con- 

 ditions were made more favorable for the last block as it was 

 practically saved from ruin by timely irrigation, and this ac- 



