244 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



is so contrary to all my previous ideas and to the ideas 

 which are current. 



Now, if you will buy some seed-corn, under any name 

 you please, whether Early Canada, King Philip, or any of 

 the names you are familiar with, and plant it, and then 

 examine the crop, you will find one peculiarity. You will 

 find that, as a rule, you will have several different varieties. 

 For instance, you will find in the Early Canada that a por- 

 tion of the crop will be of the New England eight-rowed 

 type, while another portion will be of the Canada type. If 

 you will plant a Flint corn which has been grown in the 

 vicinity of a Dent corn, you will find many Dent ears in the 

 crop. This was a suggestion for experiment to see what 

 would take place. By carefully crossing the Flint and the 

 Dent together, — forcing across, so to speak, — you will find 

 no eflect from the pollen of the first year, but that the cross- 

 seed will give you plants some of which will bear a Flint 

 corn and some others a Dent corn ; but both varieties will 

 give precisely the same variety with which they were crossed. 

 For instance, if you take the Waushakum and cross it with 

 the Minnesota Dent (or North Star, which is the preferable 

 name), that cross-seed will give you precisely and exactly 

 the Waushakum Flint and the North Star Dent ; there will 

 be no mixture in the ears. Under these circumstances of 

 careful study, it is very rare to find what may be called 

 "a sport "in crossing. So that if you take any ordinary 

 seed-corn, and try to make a selection, you cannot tell 

 whether you are si?lecting from one variety or another, 

 because most of our crops are mixed varieties, eight and 

 twelve-rowed all mixed together, and whether you take one 

 or the other in the selection will make a diflerence in the 

 result. So that when you select seed-corn, the first requisite 

 is to act on this idea of securing uniform seed. Then it is 

 more than probable that you may succeed in earlying that 

 corn by selecting the earliest ears. I hesitate to give you 

 results which are yet incomplete ; yet, in trying experi- 

 ments with many difierent species of plants, the results have 

 been corroborated in some cases for two years, but in most 

 cases only one. 



But we have a better clew for a method of securing 

 early crops than the one which is suggested by the ex- 



