Nature-Study Agriculture 



Managing 

 a seed-corn 

 plot 



A great 

 service that 

 a boy may 

 render 



u. s. D. A. 



FIG. 69. Jerry Moore, of Florence County, South Carolina. Jerry is a wide- 

 awake farmer. South Carolina soil returned him one of the heaviest yields of 

 corn that has ever been reported. 



bushels to the acre on the poorest five hundred. A 

 difference, like this, of twenty-five bushels in the yield 

 of each acre is sufficient to repay any care that may 

 be taken in the selection and testing of seed. 



For selection to improve seed corn, plots large enough 

 to contain a hundred or more rows with a hundred hills 

 each are laid out. The seed ears are selected from the 

 best ears that the fields have produced, and each row 

 is planted with seed from a single ear. When this 

 seed crop is ripe, the yield from each row is gathered 

 separately and weighed. Ears from rows that have 

 produced the most corn are used for seed (Fig. 70) . 



Every county in the corn belt should have its seed- 

 corn specialist who will provide better seed than the 

 farmers, as a rule, will take the pains to develop. The 



