CURING SEED CORN 



33 



2. For corn-breeding work the ears should be selected 

 from promising plants, which should be marked and the 

 ears left to ripen. 



3. Mark only 

 stalks that are leafy, 

 of medium size, and 

 carrying one good 

 ear to the plant. 



4. Select only 

 well-formed ears. 



The common prac- 

 tice of selecting the 

 earliest maturing 

 ears and picking 

 them from the stalk 

 as soon as the husks 

 begin to turn yellow 

 secures earliness at 

 the expense of vital- 

 ity. A slight frost 

 will not injure corn 

 if it is well matured, 

 and it is better to 

 run the risk of frost than to pick the ears too early. The 

 latter part of the growing season seems to improve greatly 

 the vitality of the corn. 



Care should be taken in the picking of seed to secure ears 

 that are attached to the stalk about 3 or 4 feet above the 

 ground. The ears that grow either very high or very low 

 upon the stalk should be rejected as undesirable. For the 

 same reason we should avoid selecting ears with very short 

 or very long shanks and also those from deformed stalks. 



M. AND H. PLANT PROD. 3 



Fig. 1 8. Selecting seed ears from desirable plants. 



