The Improvement of Crop Plants 



93 



U. S. D. A. 



FIG. 70. An ear-to-a-row test of corn. 



Department of Agriculture recommends that boys 

 undertake this work. 



The sweetest sugar beets are selected to be saved for How sugar 

 seed by taking a plug from each one and testing it for selected 

 sugar. Since the beet-sugar industry began, beets have 

 been improved until they now contain sixteen per cent 

 of sugar instead of six per cent, as they did fifty years 

 ago. Thus the amount of sugar that can be made from 

 them has been more than doubled. 



The ter.m " hybridization " is applied to the pro- Hybridiza- 

 duction of a new kind of plant by putting the pollen 

 from one plant on the stigma of another of a somewhat 

 different kind. (Exp. 2.) The seed of the flower 

 thus pollinated will produce plants somewhat resembling 

 both of the parent plants. A plant produced in this 



tion 



