THE NEW EARTH 



eight and one-half bushels per acre, while 

 maintaining an average of over thirty-seven 

 bushels for a period of four or five years. The 

 influence of such a factor as this upon the 

 agricultural life of the commonwealth, as well 

 as upon other states having similar stretches of 

 long-idle soil, is very great. It points the way 

 to a reclamation of large areas of abandoned 

 wheat-land, thus adding enormously to the 

 state. 



Turning to corn, the greatest cereal in point 

 of value of annual production in the United 

 States, the results achieved are fully as signifi- 

 cant. In corn the work has been carried on 

 mainly through breeding by selection. The 

 corn is not a self-fertilizing plant, like the 

 wheat, but is pollinated by the wind and 

 insects bearing the enriching pollen from plant 

 to plant. The results which have been here 

 reached are hard by the border-land of mir- 

 acles. 



The object sought in breeding new corns 

 was not only to produce corn with a heavier 

 yield, but to change the character of the corn 

 itself. Corn for human food should be rich in 

 one element Corn for manufacture into any 



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