106 CIVIC BIOLOGY 



secured. Saving seed from strong, productive plants — potato, wheat, corn, 

 cotton, timothy — has given rise to a large increase of production without 

 other change or difference in method of cultivation. 



In order to unite the work of the school with the interests of the 

 communitv, offer to test all kinds of seeds, especially corn, if in a corn- 

 raising section. An increase of from 30 to 40 per cent in the corn crop 

 of the district has resulted from such testing. 



A most remarkable fact has developed with reference to seed potatoes. 

 Immature tubers, about half or two thirds grown or ripened, may pro- 

 duce twice as many potatoes as dead or so-called overripe seed from the 

 same field. Immature seed potatoes are specially raised and saved in 

 Europe, and this one factor may account for the great difference in favor 

 of European over American yields — more than 2000 bushels per acre 

 as compared with less than 1000 as the best American record. This 

 must be a matter of activity, or vigor, of buds, or of availability of the 

 starch food supply. For information on raising seed potatoes, write your 

 state experiment station. 



Work for record production of thoroughly cultivated, pure-bred, pedi- 

 gree single plants — the world-record hill of potatoes, the best plant of 

 corn, wheat, cotton, oats, sunflower, tomato, cabbage, currant, raspberry, 

 blackberry, grape, peach, plum, cherry, apple, etc. More may be learned 

 from intensive practical study of a few plants, each of which is a special 

 experiment, than from any number of less intelligently cultivated acres. 



In all such problems, viiih both animals and plants, we need 

 to learn all we can about the laws and forces of heredity, 

 breeding, and breeds, and also all we can about favorable en- 

 vironment, feeding, care, and treatment. The former topics are 

 treated further in the appropriate chapters. The latter should 

 be made subjects of special study whenever it is possible to 

 have the care of either an animal or a plant, and to secure an 

 authentic record. Any one, by applying " cultivated thought," 

 may render a world service by whining a new world record. 



