102 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



will be shelled and carefully preserved, while the other half 

 of each ear will be planted in test rows of one-half ear to the 

 row. From these test rows records will be secured as to the 

 individual merits of the ears tested. The shelled corn which 

 was saved from the four or five best producing ears is then 

 planted on an isolated area, and in this way seed is produced 

 for the crop or the multiplying area of the succeeding year. 

 Thus the seed corn will be produced from the highest yield- 

 ing four ears of the test area. This system of corn breeding, 

 known as the " remnant system," requires three distinct corn- 

 breeding areas each year. The first is what is known as the 

 ear-to-the-row test, where one-half of each ear is planted and 

 one-half is saved for future use of the four or five best ears. 

 The second is a small breeding plat from the remnant of the 

 four or five best ears of the year before. In this second plat 

 all the corn may be detasseled except that from the one ear 

 which gave the highest production. This will insure that the 

 male parent in this breeding plat shall be from the highest 

 producing ear of the test of the year before. Seed is saved 

 only from the detasseled rows, thus insuring cross fertiliza- 

 tion. The third area is known as the multiplying plat, and 

 this should be planted on a part of the farm isolated from all 

 other corn. The seed produced on this plat should be kept 

 for planting the whole crop of the succeeding year, and for 

 supplying all the neighbors who may wish to pay the price 

 for the same with improved seed corn. It will require three 

 years from the time the first selection is made until the gen- 

 eral crop of corn is planted from this selected seed. While 

 this work of selecting and breeding is not difficult, and not 

 beyond the ability of an average farmer or farmer's boy, yet 

 where one has already overburdened themselves with fann 

 work, it will usually be found impracticable as well as im- 

 possible to go into corn breeding even to the extent I have 

 here outlined. To add this to the work of the already over- 

 burdened farmer would not be unlike the adding of teaching 

 agriculture to the already overburdened teacher of a country 

 school. There is a place and an o]i])ortunity for some bright 

 bov in everv communitv to o-o into this matter of corn breed- 



