\cres of Corn 



ut the shield of the great Republic, 



The glory of the West, 

 ball bear a stalk of the tasselled corn — 



The sun's supreme bequest! 



Edna Dean Proctor, Columbia's Emblem 



artment of Agronomy 



Rigid Selection 



Dr. W. J. Beal of Michigan Agri- 

 cultural College (precursor of Mich- 

 igan State University) was the first to 

 hybridize corn in 1876 by crossing 

 two varieties. 



Twenty-nine years later. Dr. George 

 H. Shull discovered that he could 

 control heredity by inbreeding and 

 thus isolate valuable pure lines in 

 corn. By placing the pollen from 

 a desirable strain of corn onto the 

 silks of another, he discovered a new 

 strain. By this system of rigid selec- 

 tion, poor lines were eliminated, and 

 a hybrid corn superior to even the 

 best open-pollinated varieties was 

 born. 



Still Not Perfect 



Hybrid corn is regarded by many 

 agricultural historians as the most 

 important development in food-bear- 

 ing plants of the last 500 years. 



All the sweet corn and field corn 

 hybrids grown today are produced 

 by crossing specially selected strains. 

 There is an adapted commercial 

 strain of hybrid corn for every corn- 

 growing section of the countrv. 



Unfortunately, no single hybrid 

 has all the desirable features of a 

 good strain of corn. 



Synthetic "Wild" Corn is an earless variety 

 produced from pop corn and pod corn. 

 Heat caused the kernels to pop. 



Courtesy of Scientific American 



Possible Clue in Early Corn 



In this concentrated project to dis- 

 cover a desirable hybrid corn, thou- 

 sands of types of aboriginal corn in 

 parts of the American tropics are 

 being collected and brought to breed- 

 ing centers for intensive study. It is 

 quite possible that the clue to the 

 new hybrid corn of tomorrow may be 

 locked up in one of the queer, multi- 

 colored, nubby maizes of the ab- 

 origines. 



Tomorrow's Corn to he 

 Tailor-made With 



strong root systems to resist lodg- 

 ing . . . greater drought tolerance 

 . . . resistance to diseases, 

 cially to stalk and ear rot . 

 sistance to insect pests . . 

 protein content in grain . . 

 latioii to clitnate and soil . 

 imum yield of good quality grain 

 and fodder. 



espe- 

 . . re- 



• high 

 adap- 

 . max- 



