EXPERIMENT STATION REPORT. 405 



<30vered with a "tent" made of cloth tacked to stakes that were 

 -driven in the ground. These "tents" were triangular, one foot 

 upon each side, and everywhere made, as it seemed, pollen proof. 

 In these enclosures the stalks remained for three weeks, the only 

 attention given them being an almost daily jarring, to assist in the 

 fall of the pollen that of course was shut in from the ordinary winds 

 moving around them. 



It was observed during the time the "tents" were in use that or- 

 dinary stalks in the open, comparable in every way with those 

 covered, matured much more rapidly. While it is, for example, a well- 

 observed fact that the tassel begins to show pollen in its lowermost 

 branches some two or three days before the silks of the same stalk 

 appear, in the confined stalks this period was increased to a week or 

 even ten days. It was also noted that the silks of the "tented" 

 stalks kept green and apparently receptive for a time, far exceeding 

 that of the surrounding corn. Last season an experiment was made 

 upon the duration of fresh corn-silk by removing all the tassels from 

 a plot planted late, and therefore in bloom after all surrounding plots 

 of corn had gone to seed. It was then demonstrated that silk de- 

 prived of pollen did not only grow to enormous size, but kept green 

 for two or three times the normal period. The "tented " plants be- 

 haved in the same way as if the pollen did not reach it promptly, 

 and this is probably true because of the confined condition of the 

 plant under treatment. Good ears, however, did finally form in the 

 " tents," as may be shown by those figured in Plate VII. No. 1 is 

 as an ear from the corn started in the greenhouse above located in 

 the field. No. 2 is a similar ear from a plant "tented " in the same 

 way as before noted, but in Plot IV., Series VI., where the seed 

 grain was planted in the field. These ears are both short, but well 

 iilled out with normal grains and with an admixture of white and 

 pink and all the aspects of the ears of the crop of the previous 

 season. In No. 3 is shown an ear obtained by covering the young 

 ear before blooming, with a paper bag, while the tassel had been 

 similarly treated some days before. When the silk was ready the 

 bag containing the tassel cut from its stalk replaced the one that had 

 previously protected the young ear. The latter large bag was kept 

 in place until the com had setg There seems to be very little op- 

 portunity of foreign pollination. The ear shown, one of several, is 

 of fair size and is from a stalk that grew from a very dark grain. 

 The mixture of grains is more distinctly black with white, not well 

 shown in the engraving, as the photograph of this No. 4 being taken 



