EXPERIMENT STATIOX KEPOKT. 463 



to whose faithfulness any success iu breeding plants and other pains- 

 taking operations is largely due. Sickness on the part of the writer 

 has prevented him from giving the usual amount of attention to the 

 department. 



The Experiment Area. 



The plan upon the opposing page shows the method by which the 

 Experiment Area of two acres has been divided and the location of 

 the several crops that occupied the ground the present season. 



The ends of the piece of land are brought to a rectangle with the 

 long parallel sides, and then paths four feet wide, running the short 

 way, cut the land into seven series. Each of these series is again 

 divided by three two-foot paths, running the length of the area, thus 

 making the twenty-eight plots, each 33 by 66 feet, and containing 

 one-twentieth of an acre. 



The soil is fairly uniform in quality throughout, it being a mix- 

 ture of clay and gravel and not the best for garden purposes. Its 

 texture has been improved by the application of stable manure at the 

 rate of twenty tons per acre for the past nine years. During the last 

 five years the manure 'has been placed in heaps of ten or twenty tons, 

 and, when well rotted, added by measure to the several plots just 

 before plowing or spading in the spring. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH S^VEET CORN. 



The experiments in the crossing of sweet corn began in 1898, by 

 planting the following sorts in the same plot : "First of All," '"Stab- 

 ler's Nonpareil," "Stowell's Evergreen," "Egyptian" and "Black 

 Mexican." Cross-fertilization took place freely between the "Black 

 Mexican" and the "Egyptian," some ears of the latter showing fully 

 one-half of the grains of a dark color, indicating the effect of the 

 former variety, the only one that was not white. It was observed 

 that the dark color was less impressed upon the crossed grains of the 

 "Stowell's Evergreen" than the "Egyptian." This suggested that 

 the "Black Mexican" was more potent upon the "Egyptian" than 

 upon the "Stowell's Evergreen," and led to the selection of the first 

 two named sorts for future breeding. 



In 1899 Plot II., Series III., was planted again to sweet corn, 



