ECONOMIC PLANTS 



193 



Note. In the northern states early selection of seed corn is 

 necessary so that it may be thoroughly dried before freezing weather 

 comes. Freezing before the corn is thoroughly dried is almost certain 

 to injure the germ. 



It is a good practice and one followed by many corn 

 growers to go through this seed patch of three or four 

 acres planted from the 

 fifty or sixty best ears 

 of corn, after it has been 

 laid by and before the 

 tassels appear, and to cut 

 out all the weak and 

 sickly stalks and those 

 that are too tall and late 

 or too short and early 

 and in this way to pre- 

 vent them from pro- 

 ducing pollen to ferti- 

 lize the kernels of other 



ears. 



FIG. 96. 



a, good types of kernels of corn. Note the broad 

 tips. Such kernels are richer in food nutrients, 

 have larger, stronger germs, and yield a larger 

 proportion of corn to cob, than do kernels with 

 small pointed tips, like those shown in b. 



The best soil for corn in one region is not necessarily 

 the best in another. In the central prairie states" the 

 ideal corn soils are a silt loam or a black clay loam, but 

 these are not at all the most desirable corn soils for 

 the northeastern and eastern tide-water states. Here 

 the gravelly and stony loams are better, because the 

 greater elevation and consequent shorter season make 

 it necessary to have at once a well-drained, well-warmed, 

 and moisture-retaining soil to satisfy the demands of 

 a heavy, rank-growing crop. On the other hand, in 

 the southern seaboard states, owing to different climatic 

 conditions and altitude, the heavy loams and clays are 

 best adapted to corn. 

 M. & H. AG. 13 



