CORN BREEDING 145 



Using plants of identical parentage, Hartley' found that the 

 yield of grain per plant grown from lower ears was equally as great 

 as the yield from plants grown from upper ears. He found the 

 plants grown from middle ears (on three-eared plants) to average 

 0.65 of a pound of ear corn per plant, as compared with 0.70 of a 

 pound from the offspring of both upper and lower ears borne by 

 the same parent plants. 



Redding (Georgia Experiment Station, Bui. No. 55) obtained a 

 slightly larger yield of grain from the offspring of bottom ears 

 than from those of upper ears. The Alabama Experiment Station 

 (Bui. No. 134) obtained in 1903 with St. Charles White a greater 

 yield from upper ears, but in 1905, in a more extensive test with 

 the Experiment Station Yellow variety, there was practically no 

 difference in the grain yield of plants tracing to upper and to 

 lower ears. At the Rhode Island Station (Bui. 116) Card found in 

 sweet corn a tendency for the seed from upper ears to produce 

 a greater number of ears per plant than seed from lower ears. 

 This he assumed to be due to the more complete maturity and 

 greater size of the upper ears of sweet corn. 



On the whole, available evidence is not sufficient to show 

 any material difference between top and bottom ears for 

 planting; and on theoretical grounds we should expect top 

 and bottom ears, if equally developed in size and matur- 

 ity, to be equally valuable for planting. 



133. Seed from different parts of the ear. — It is cus- 

 tomary in the South to remove the grain for about an 

 inch both at the tip and at the butt of the ear. Numerous 

 experiments show little or no difference in yield of corn 

 produced by planting grain from the tip, butt, and middle 

 portions of the ear. Even when the experiment extended 

 through a number of successive generations, there were 

 no notable differences in the jdelds. 



' American Breeders' Association, Vol, II, p. 124. 



