60 HOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



very much loss than at the present time. We have succeeded 

 in producing varieties which will grow much nearer the pole 

 than the corn which the Indians gave us. Those peculiar 

 varieties have been developed here and there by carry- 

 ins: the seed to other fields than those in which it was 

 grown. In Kentucky we often have droughts in the spring 

 and early summer which injure the corn so that when 

 the season gets along towards the first of July we have a 

 blasted crop. I found that if I could get the Canada flint, 

 as we used to call it, — and I suppose it is called by that 

 name now, — and plant it in Kentucky, I could make a crop 

 in a hundred days ; but when I undertook to grow the same 

 plant the second year, I found that its ripening period was 

 prolonged, and it was less satisfactory. On the other hand, 

 while this corn would ripen in Kentucky in about a hundred 

 days, if you take the large, tall-growing, coarse corn culti- 

 vated in Alabama twenty years ago, and plant that in Ken- 

 tucky, you find it takes at least 40 per cent longer before it 

 comes to ripening. Now, it seems to me it would be well if we 

 could in some way get a system of seed exchanges by which 

 peculiar varieties of corn, those adapted to special locations, 

 could be distributed. I believe we can obtain corn from 

 Canada that can be planted as late as the first ten days of 

 July with a reasonable chance of securing a crop. It 

 ns to me that one practical point is that these varieties 

 should be rendered accessible through some form of exchange, 

 so that they can be had in case of need. The theory of planting, 

 that is, whether the seed should be selected from the middle 

 of the car or from cither end, seems to me of interest; but 

 I must confess, from what experiments I have made, which 

 have not been many, and also from the theories on the sub- 

 ject which I derived from the work of the botanists, 

 that it seems to me there is no reason to expect that the dif- 

 ference in the position of the kernels on the car will have 

 any considerable effect on the plant. If you consider what 

 it is that determines the type of a plant, — if you take those 

 flowers (referring to a basket of chrysanthemums and other 

 flowers on the platform), which arc the forerunners of fruit, 

 and consider what determines their form and their other 

 properties, you find that it is only in part the influence that 



