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A great many of you know the story of ''Boone County White." 

 Its introduction into our county by our school has resulted in an annual 

 increase in the value of the corn crop sufficient, economists figure, to pay 

 for the school every year. 



My experience with corn started in 1910 when, with four other fel- 

 lows, I ran, as my summer experiment required by the school, a variety 

 test plat. The following were the results: 



Selecting seed-ears from my Boone County White test-plat, 1 planted 

 them in my contest acre the following year. I raised 13.2 barrels from that 

 acre. Every ear of it passed through my hands, and the result was about 

 six bushels of ears of almost show form. By elimination, I picked the 

 best hundred of these, then the best fifty. Scoring this fifty carefully, I 

 got the best twenty-five ears, and numbered them. 



This brings us up to the first breeding plat I ran, and forces me to 

 pause in the narration of what I did and tell you why I did it. 



A corn seed is an embryo; an egg is also an embryo. Can you look 

 at an egg and foretell the chick? No. Neither can you look at corn 

 and prophesy the progeny. '.'Like begets like," you say, and high-class 

 ears should produce high-class ears. Perhaps. But is there anything in 

 the appearance of an ear of corn that accurately indicates its power of 

 profitable production? Absolutely nothing. 



All of these carefully picked ears which I had selected possessed qual- 

 ity. But we want more than quality; we want quantity, for after all that 

 is the thing that fills the corn crib. The twenty-five selected ears looked 

 good, but would they make good? I did not know; nobody could tell me; 

 I had to try and see. 



So, simply said, that is what a corn-pedigree plat is, — "to try and 

 see." To take grains from the best ears you can find— from the stand- 

 point of external appearances — and plant them, side by side, under equal 

 conditions! Then to measure the comparative yields; and use the win- 

 ners for the sires and grandsires of your confields-to-come. 



With this end in view, I took a level, uniform piece of land and laid 

 it off fifty hills square. This gave me fifty corn-rows of equal length and 

 worth divided up into fifty equal portions. In rows Nos. 1, 3, 5, 7, etc., I 

 planted assorted seed from the strongest specimens of seed-ears' I could 

 get. In rows Nos. 2, 4, 6, etc., I planted half of the grain from ears Nos. 

 1, 2, 3, etc., respectively. When these ear-rows came into tassel the tas- 

 sels were all pulled out and only the pollen from the mixed rows allowed to 

 pollenize the tested or female rows. This was done to prevent inbreeding 

 and consequent deterioration. 



