324 LUTHER BURBANK 



signs of making growth they were transplanted 

 into rows in the field. 



Unfortunately, the suckering was not done 

 early enough in the season to give all the new 

 plants time to ripen a crop of corn. If they had 

 been planted even three or four days earlier, all 

 would have been well. As it was, only about half 

 or two-thirds of the plants ripened their crop. 



Of course the plants had been hand-pollenized 

 to avoid all danger of vitiating the strain with 

 windborne pollen from ordinary corn tassels. 



To guard absolutely against the danger of 

 cross-pollenizing, if there is any other corn in the 

 neighborhood, it is necessary to cover the tassels 

 with a paper bag while they are maturing 

 and before they are pollenized. Pollenizing is 

 effected by dusting a tassel with its load of pollen 

 against the corn silks; these filamentous threads 

 being of course the pistils of the corn flower. 

 Each thread leads to an ovule that becomes a 

 grain of corn in due course, after the nucleus of 

 the pollen grain has made its way down the 

 entire thread to unite with it. 



I may add that the corn raised from the 

 suckers proved fully as good in all respects as 

 that raised from originally planted seed, when 

 removed early enough in the season and prop- 

 erly treated, the weight of grain per acre being 



