380 NEW JERSEY AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE 



The soil, naturally gravelly clay, underlaid with yellow gi-avel, has 

 been gradually improved by the addition of stable manure at the 

 rate of twenty tons per acre for the past eight years. No other fer- 

 tilizer has been used. During the winter the land has either lain bare 

 •or carried a green cover, produced by sowing rye or barley in the au- 

 tumn. A special point has been made to clear up the soil after each 

 crop and cart away and burn the refuse. The comparative freedom 

 from disease, especially where the same crop has been grown succes- 

 sively upon a plot, is ascribed to this sanitary method, and is highly 

 recommended to all engaged in growing truck crops. 



EXPERIMENTS IN CROSSING SIVEET CORN. 



Plot IV., Series VL, was again planted with sweet corn. In belts 1 

 and 2 the seed used was from ears grown in the greenhouse the previous 

 winter. These ears were from seed taken from a solid red ear, named 

 ''Extra" (X.), grown in 1901 upon the plot now under consideration. 

 The remaining four belts were planted with grains from the ear "X./' 

 above mentioned, and therefore, while the whole plot was planted wi^ 

 the product of the same ear, the first two belts bore plants one genera- 

 tion further from the original cross of the "Black Mexican" and the 

 "Egyptian." In the tests for albinism (white seedlings) and other 

 characteristics of germination, the ear in question was named "Extra'* 

 because it produced first-class plants and gave no signs of albinism. 



Unlike the crop of the previous year, the plants were not large and 

 matured more quickly than upon some of the other plots. The two 

 belts planted with the greenhouse-grown seed produced smaller plants 

 than the other four belts, and this was to be expected, because the 

 plants grown in the winter under glass were slender and produced 

 ears of only two or three inches in length, but with nearly normal 

 diameter. The individual grains were of practically the same size as 

 that of their parent. While the stalks in the field were below normal 

 size, the ears were not far below those of the adjoining belts. 



The first thing to be observed in the product of the two belts planted 

 with the greenhouse-grown com is the large number of red grains. 

 The table below gives the number of each grains for each color for 

 five average ears : 



