The Anatomy and Physiology of Plants 77 



therefore, should understand the methods best adapted to 

 the perfection of the seed he uses for his crops. 



Much has been pubHshed of late years in 



Plant-breeding regard to the improvement of the corn crop, 

 Applied to the ", "^ ^ , , , ^' 



Corn Crop ^^^ 8^^^^ stress has been placed on the 

 proper selection of ears for this purpose. 

 But the mere selection of pretty and well-formed ears 

 will do little toward the improvement of the com crop. 

 In any improvement of our plants used for farm crops we 

 must make a careful study of the whole plant. If we 

 breed corn simply for a pretty ear we may get the pretty 

 ear borne on a very undesirable plant with but a single ear, 

 and that too far from the ground and liable to be blown 

 over. In starting the improvement of Indian corn we 

 must remember what has been said of the way com is 

 fertilized by the pollen around it. Each silk is a separate 

 pistil, with its separate ovary, the whole of which is trans- 

 formed by the pollen into a fruit or grain. So, instead of 

 assuming that the ear is the unit to begin with we must 

 know that each grain on the cob may have, and probably 

 has, a distinct male parent or pollen grain, and is there- 

 fore entirely different in its inheritance from the grain 

 just beside it. Now, if the pretty and well-formed ear 

 we have selected by the score card has grown where it is 

 surrounded by inferior plants it is easy to see that it will 

 be as apt to reproduce the inferior plants as the one from 

 which it came. Therefore, the farmer who wishes to 

 improve his corn should plant a plot to be grown for seed. 

 He should use corn that has long been grown in his sec- 

 tion, for corn from far north or south of any given locahty 

 will not do well there till accHmated. He should give this 



