THE PLANT 69 



enough seed to distribute over the country. It became 

 known as the Fultz wheat, and is to-day one of the best 

 varieties in the United States and in a number of foreign 

 countries. Think how many bushels of wheat have been 

 added to the world's annual supply by a few moments of 

 intelligent observation and action on the part of this one 

 man ! I^e saw his opportunity and used it. How many 

 similar opportunities do you think are lost ? How much 

 does your state or country lose thereby? 



EXERCISE 



Select one hundred seeds from a good and one hundred from a 

 poor plant of the same variety. Sow them in two plats far enough 

 apart to avoid cross pollination, yet try to have soil conditions about 

 the same. Give each the same care and compare the yield. Try 

 this with corn, cotton, wheat. Select seeds from the best plant in 

 your good plat and from the poorest in your poor plat and repeat 

 the experiment. This will require but a few feet of ground, and the 

 good plat will pay for itself in yield and the poor plat will more than 

 pay in the lesson that it will teach you. 



Read page 68, Bulletin 24, of the Division of Vegetable Physi- 

 ology and Pathology of the Department of Agriculture or the Year 

 Book of the Department of Agriculture for 1896 (pages 489-498), 

 which you can get by writing to the Department of Agriculture, 

 Washington, D.C. Write to the Department of Agriculture for any 

 bulletins that they can give you on plant breeding. 



SECTION XIX SELECTING SEED CORN 



If a farmer would raise good crops, he must select good 

 seed. Many of the farmer's disappointments in the quan- 

 tity and quality of his crops, disappointments often attrib- 

 uted to other causes, are the result of planting poor seed. 



