lis FIELD CROPS 



yielding ears each year, new blood can constantly be brought 

 in from ears of known yielding power. This plan will quite 

 probably be adopted eventually bj^ all corn breeders. 



156. The Need for Special Breeders. Too much time and 

 too much careful work are involved in the scientific breed- 

 ing of corn to make it practical for each farmer to attempt 

 the work. Probabty the average farmer will not care to go 

 further in l^reeding work than to ha^-e a special seed corn 

 l^lat, and not attempt to produce pedigreed seed corn, or 

 even to conduct an ear-to-row test. Then, in every corn- 

 growing community there wdll be room for a corn breeder. 

 When this breeder has demonstrated that he has corn of 

 superior quality especially adapted to the locality, he will 

 have little difficulty in selling it at a price which will 

 make it profital^le for him to breed corn as a business. If 

 he produces corn of high quality, it will be profitable for 

 farmers in the community to buy seed of him. 



157. The Farmer's Seed Com Plat. Every corn grower 

 can well afford to give some time and thought to the care and 

 handling of a seed corn plat. The size of this plat w411 

 depend upon the acreage of corn grown. The object should 

 be to have the plat large enough to produce sufficient seed 

 of excellent quality to meet his requirements. If the seed 

 corn plat is to be one acre in size, the proper method is to 

 select the necessaiy number of ears, which is about twent}^, 

 to plant this plat, using extra care to select absolutely the 

 best ears that can be obtained. After the ears are selected 

 and tested, the plat is planted in the same way as the ordi- 

 nary field ; in fact, it is preferably a part of the regular corn 

 field. If possible, it should be on either the south or the west 

 side of the field, or on the side toward the prevaiUng winds, 

 so that the pollen from the main portion will be less likely 

 to fertihze the stalks in this seed plat. Care must be taken, 

 however, that the plat is not near a neighbor's corn field, 

 because the neighbor may not have as carefully selected com 



