225 



In the fall the male, or mixed rows, were first gotten out of the way. 

 This simplified the plat to twenty-five standing lines of 150 stalks, each 

 line representing the producing power of the ear whose number it bore. 

 The rows were then carefully harvested and their crop weighed separately. 

 The most amazing variation lay in the yields of the seed from ears Nos. 24 

 and 25, growing side by side under environmental conditions as identical 

 as it is possible to obtain. No. 24 gave 230 pounds of cob corn; No. 25 

 gave but 72.6 pounds. At the time I hesitated in emphasizing this great 

 discrepancy, thinking it might perhaps be merely a freak, but since then 

 talks with authorities and a repetition of the result in another breeding 

 block have convinced me that heredity does cause just such enormous 

 differences in yield — even higher than 400 per cent sometimes. Here is 

 a tremendous, unseen, unvarying power which, controlled, enables a man 

 to double his crops and then double them again without even touching a 

 plow handle. 



With these results in hand, I saved the half-ears — (known technically 

 as remnants) — which had performed the best. Then from the thirteen 

 acre cornfield of our home place I went to work again and carefully 

 selected twenty-five other ears after the manner of the previous year. To 

 add to the interest of the next year's work I took care to thoroughly exam- 

 ine each ear and accurately score it. I determined the percentage of ex- 

 cellence of the ear as a whole, then of the grain; and then I weighed ear 

 and shelled seed for the percentage of ration of corn to cob. These three 

 ratings I averaged and called the result the "average apparent excellence" 

 of the ear. My motive in doing this was to try and see if any relation 

 really existed between the ''average apparent excellence" of a seed-ear 

 and its performance in pounds in the field. 



I planted my plat of 1913 much after the manner of that of 1912, 

 excepting that, instead of unknown mixed grain, I was able to sire it with 

 the leading 1912 remnants of known performance, thus obtaining a partial 

 ''double-pedigree" system. Here (pointing to chart) are the weighed 

 results of this year's work: 



Copy of Chart Displayed in Illustration of Making Corn Make Good. 



Average Apparent Produced Pounds 



Ear Excellence Per Cent Per Stalk 



No. 1 74 .310 



" 2 81 .280 



" 3 84 .390 



'' 4 94 .572 



*' 5 86 .642 



" 6 87 .894 



" 7 89 .555 



" 8 .89 .703 



"9 91 .700 -. , 



" 10 92 .626 



"11 94 .678 



"12 94 .593 



-"13 96 .553 



"14 95 .571 



" 15 93 .500 



