ON CORN 



One of the secrets was in germinating the corn. 

 I obtained fresh stable manure in the proper sea- 

 son, and mixed this with leaf-mould, about half 

 and half. Corn placed in this when it was moist 

 and warm would germinate rapidly. 



When the young roots were from two to six or 

 eight inches in length, and the tops had made a 

 growth of half an inch or so, I would plant these 

 sprouted grains in ordinary drills, dropping them 

 in just as corn would be dropped, no attention 

 whatever being paid to the way they fall whether 

 with roots down or up. 



A half inch covering of dirt being put over the 

 sprouted grain, it was nothing unusual to find 

 shoots coming through the soil the next morning. 



And this early start would enable the plants to 

 grow marketable ears at least a week earlier than 

 they would have done had the seed been planted in 

 the ordinary way. The growth of the plants could 

 be further stimulated by placing a small quantity 

 of bone meal, or of a good nitrogenous fertilizer 

 containing a certain amount of phosphorus, in the 

 soil about the roots. 



Preliminary to this method, I had made ex- 

 tremely useful selections of the earliest-ripening 

 ears for a number of seasons. 



EARLY HYBRIDIZING EXPERIMENTS 



My experiments of this early period were not 



[29] 



