IN THE VEGETABLE GARDEN 



corn that ordinarily bears white kernels are fer- 

 tilized with pollen from a yellow variety, the 

 kernels will be yellow, because this color is "dom- 

 inant," in the Mendelian sense. And if part of 

 the pistils receives pollen from the yellow variety 

 and part from the white variety, the resulting 

 ear may be variegated, some kernels being yellow 

 and some white. Thus you may know at once 

 whether cross-pollenation has been effected. 



This obviously gives a clew to some interesting 

 possibilities of experiment. 



You might, for example, apply pollen from two 

 or three different varieties of corn to different 

 parts of the silky tassel. You will thus secure 

 an ear of corn that is a conglomerate of different 

 strains of heredity. 



There are other qualities beside color that may 

 be considered. For example, some varieties of 

 corn have more starch, others more sugar. The 

 starchy kernels are plump, the sugary kernels 

 wrinkled when mature. Starchiness is dominant 

 to the other condition; so the kernels fertilized 

 by the starchy variety will be plump, in contrast 

 to the wrinkled sugary ones. 



It is obvious that interesting combinations are 

 possible if you hybridize, let us say, a variety 

 having starchy white kernels with one having 

 sweet yellow ones. 



The immediate result of this particular com- 

 bination would be that all the kernels of an ear 

 thus cross-pollenized would be plump and yellow. 

 But if these kernels are planted, the crop grown 



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