I32 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I916. 



Leighty 18 have studied the correlation between various, charac- 

 ters in different varieties and different pure lines. In general 

 these studies have shown that there is a high correlation between 

 certain straw and head characters and the yield of grain per 

 plant or culm. It will therefore be of interest to discuss certain 

 of these morphological characters in our pure lines. 



The characters of these pure lines may conveniently be classi- 

 fied into two groups, one containing the features studied in the 

 field, the other those analyzed in the laboratory. . 



The first feature of the young oat plant attracting attention 

 in the field is the stooling. By this we understand the ability of 

 the cereals to produce, apart from the main culm, a smaller or 

 larger number of adventitious culms. While a high stooling 

 power is not looked for in dry and continental regions, it is a 

 very desirable feature in this state owing to the abundant pre- 

 cipitation well distributed throughout the growing season. This 

 is particularly true of the central part of this state where the 

 growing season is longer than in the northern part and late 

 maturity of the crop, usually associated with abundant stooling, 

 is not to be feared. The stooling power is influenced by envi- 

 ronmental factors such as climate, soil, fertilizer and stand. 

 The stooling qualities of our lines were studied in the garden 

 rows and under field conditions and since they grew under the 

 same environmental conditions the conclusions concerning their 

 stooling ability are comparable. 



"It has been found that the lines 230, 281, 286, 307, 351, 355 

 and 357, all originally selected from the Banner variety, tend to 

 show a high stooling power approached only by the lines 340 

 and 336 of the Irish Victor group. With this vigorous grow- 

 ing tendency is associated a later maturity. The plants of the 

 lines 307, 355, etc., devote, in their early growth, a great amount 

 of growing energy to the production of new culms, while other 

 lines, producing fewer culms, use that energy for the further- 

 ance of their smaller number of heads. This compensation of 

 growth can be clearly seen by comparing the time of heading 

 and maturity of the respective lines. 



18 Leighty, C. E. Variation and Correlation of Oats. Part II. Effect 

 of differences in environment, varieties and methods on biometrical 

 constants. Cornell Exper. Stat. Memoir No. 4, pp. 81-216, 1914. 



