BREEDING AND SELECTION 59 



year. The live stock breeder, on the other hand, pays 

 a great amount of money for one individual which 

 requires a mate. 



In years past little attempt has been made to 

 systematically improve corn. The corn plant was but 

 little understood. In fact, the whole field of corn 

 development is practically unexplored. Enough is 

 known, however, to show the boundless possibilities 

 and in a general way to direct the work of the breed- 

 ers to some definite end. Following will be given an 

 outline of the methods now in use. These are the 

 result of the experience of the past and the study of 

 the present. 



APPROVED METHODS OBSERVED IN BREEDING 



There are two grades of seed corn — the highly- 

 bred seed and the stock seed. The highly-bred seed 

 can never exist in large quantities and will conse- 

 quently never enter into the commercial transactions 

 of the corn breeder to any great extent. 



By highly-bred seed is meant seed that represents 

 the best of the improved types. In other words, those 

 ears which as nearly as possible represent the ideal 

 ear. As every ear is different from every other ear, 

 there can never be a large number of such ears. 

 However, this very fact of wide variation makes the 

 improvement of varieties possible. If there was no 

 variation from which selection could be made, there 

 could be no improvement. It is by selecting those 

 ears which vary in the direction desired and discarding 

 the poor ears that a general advance can be made. 



The stock seed is the corn one generation removed 

 from the highly-bred seed. The corn breeder will 

 concentrate his main effort in the production of highly- 

 bred seed. From this seed large quantities of stock 

 seed may be grown and sold to the farmers. This 



