CORN OR MAIZE 85 



should be selected for perpetuation. Seed corn should 

 not be selected from the 'variety test plots, for since corn 

 is a cross-pollinating plant, the varieties growing side by 

 side have intercrossed and the progeny of such seed would 

 be a mixture. The variety test only points out the 

 variety best adapted to the field in question, and the seed 

 for planting the next year's crop should be secured from 

 the same grower that furnished the seed for the test plot. 

 66. Seed selection. The most common method of 

 selecting seed corn is that of laying aside the best appear- 

 ing ears that are found during harvest or that are found 

 here and there as the corn is fed from the crib during the 

 winter or spring. Sometimes seed selection is delayed 

 until spring, when the seed ears are picked from the crib. 

 The best corn growers, however, practice field selection. 

 Field selection is going into the field and selecting the 

 ears from the standing stalks. There are several reasons 

 why field selected seed is to be preferred to seed selected 

 from the crib in the spring, or even to seed selected from 

 the wagon at harvest time. It is not always the large, 

 well-proportioned ear that one would naturally pick 

 when selecting from the crib that produces the largest 

 yield. In many cases these superior' looking ears have 

 been produced under extremely favorable conditions. 

 Probably they have grown in a hill of only one stalk 

 instead of three, perhaps on some unusually fertile spot, 

 or over a tile drain, or under some abnormal conditions 

 that were favorable to their growth. The merits of these 

 ears will not, in all probability, be reproduced in the 

 progeny unless planted under the favorable conditions 

 that produced them. In field selection only ears that are 

 found growing under normal conditions of stand, fertility, 

 and the like are selected. The excellence which these 



