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County, attempted to judge it by inspection without the germination test, 

 and it did not give satisfaction. 



PRESIDENT MANN: Mr. Campbell will answer your question. 



Mr. CAMPBELL: In Knox County, where the utility corn test was 

 started, we, too, have not been able to get them to furnish the corn in time 

 to make the germination test, therefore we had to make it more a question 

 of judgment than anything else. We gave the smooth corn the decision over 

 the rough corn. In that we used the Utility Score Card, but the Illinois 

 Corn Growers Association has placed Knox County and Warren County in 

 the upper district, instead of in the central district, and that changes the 

 length of the corn to eight and a half inches, instead of nine and a half, so 

 we have just as good a chance as has Henry County. We think that an 

 oily appearing corn that lacks the exterior cells where disease germs accu- 

 mulate is better than the other, and that is the way we get at it. We take 

 the Utility Score Card and use it right down until we get to the germination 

 test, then we use our best judgment. 



PRESIDENT MANN: I think it was Abraham Lincoln who said that 

 the Lord must have loved poor people, because he made so many of them, 

 and I think the same idea, the same reason enters into the production of 

 corn. There are just two things we want in corn one is yield and the 

 other is quality, and quality is only one thing and that is maturity. Every 

 point on a Utility Score Card that has reference to a certain thing ultimately 

 comes right down to the maturity of the corn, whether it is for seed, sale 

 or feed. Its quality is represented by its ability to mature, and hence the 

 utility corn is that corn which is most likely to mature. For thirty years 

 many of you know I have written and spoken against this idea of getting a 

 uniform, beautiful show corn for actual production. Now we are getting 

 back to the same old thing, and that is just common corn and the most of 

 it. That is what we want. [Applause.] 



Mr. CAMPBELL: May I also state that we do not think about the 

 corn crop when we are judging it, but we do think about and keep in our 

 minds all the time, "Will this corn produce, and how much will it produce?" 

 Then we trust for the fields to do the balance. 



PRESIDENT MANN: I think Dr. Hottes' explanation of the danger 

 of the very deeply indented corn is mighty good. Maturity means the con- 

 version of sugars into starches and oils. That is all it means. Plant sugars 

 are easily destroyed by freezing or high temperatures, or in many ways. 

 If an immatured grain of corn is planted in the ground it would be good 

 food for insects, fungi and bacteria. Sugar is what they live on. A perfectly 

 matured grain of corn has practically no sugars in it. Under the lowering 

 temperature which the corn meets in the fall it changes the sugars into 

 starches and oil. Fungi, insects or bacteria can't live on that. Other organ- 

 isms can, but the lower things the lower organisms can't live on starches 

 nor oils to any extent. Before the plant can get the food out of the starches 

 and oils they must be converted into sugar. Sugars are starches in solution 

 in water, so that grain of corn has got sugars in it. The sugars will 

 permeate the soil by diffusion; they get away from the kernel into the 

 soil, and there is always fungi or something lurking around in a good fertile 

 soil, especially if it is a sour soil, and they feed on the dissolving sugars. 

 Those diffusing sugars come up to the grain and destroy probably the grain 

 and that corn decays. I have seen well matured corn stay in the ground 

 under conditions that growth could not take place even after planted, sub- 

 merged in water two or three weeks and then grow. Your immature corn 

 could not stand more than two or three days before it would be dead. So 

 everything in the utility corn idea leads up to the question of maturity. 



Dr. Holbert is doing a wonderful work in the study of those resistive 

 characters. We know certain characters are liable to be injured by infesta 

 tion of some kind. We know poor lungs in an animal invite lung diseases. 

 Not that the poor lungs cause disease; no, but they have less resistance. 

 Hence, you want good lungs on your animal so you will avoid lung diseases. 

 There are the same characters in corn. Starting out on that line of scientific 

 breeding is going to have a wonderful effect in the next few years, not only 



