PLANT IMPROVEMENT 155 



should be marked in such a way as to make them easily 

 noticed when the, corn is husked. When mature, the ears 

 from all the selected plants are kept separate and cared for 

 according to suggestions made in Chapter VIII. 



Final selection. Final selection may be put into practice 

 shortly before planting time in the spring. First, each ear 

 saved should be examined carefully to discover such characters 

 as injuries from disease, poor shape of ear or kernels, poorly 



Harvesting at end of an ear-to-row test. Shows method of determining 

 which seed ears have produced the greatest yield. (U.S. Dept. of Agri- 

 culture.) 



filled butt or tip, and any other features undesirable in an 

 ear of corn. Defective ears should be thrown out. Next, 

 a germinating test should be made of the remainder and the 

 ones showing poor germination should be thrown out. From 

 the remaining ears, twenty to fifty of the best should be 

 selected for the ear-to-row trial, the others may be used for 

 planting the regular crop. 



Ear-to-row trial. An ear-to-row test, as the name indi- 

 cates, means the planting of one row from each ear, usually 

 a row of one hundred hills. A corner of the field which is to 



