LUTHER BURBANK 



confined to methods of germinating and forced 

 cultivation, but included also hybridizing tests. 



My principal work was in crossing the black 

 Mexican corn, the common sweet corn, and the 

 New England yellow field corn. There was, of 

 course, no difficulty in effecting crossing, but I 

 found it very difficult to fix any good variety. 

 These were the first experiments in this special 

 line ever made with corn. They have of course 

 been duplicated a thousand times since. 



The most important experiments that I made 

 had to do with crossing the yellow field corn with 

 the Early Minnesota and other varieties of sweet 

 corn, my intention being to produce a sweet corn 

 with yellow kernels. There was a demand for 

 such a variety, and none existed at that time. 



I succeeded in producing hybrids that com- 

 bined the yellow color of the field corn with the 

 sweetness of the other variety, but had not thor- 

 oughly fixed the new variety so that it would uni- 

 formly breed true from seed at the time when I 

 removed to California, in 1875; and this inter- 

 rupted the corn experiments. 



In the meantime, however, I had gained valu- 

 able lessons in heredity from observation of the 

 cross-bred corn. 



In the second generation numerous fine pure 

 yellow ears were obtained without a trace of white, 



[30] 



