LUTHER BURBANK 



crops, even if the abundant evidence had not 

 already been developed by my own experiments. 



In the course of a few generations of selective 

 breeding, I had a race of descendants of the single- 

 husked or tunicate corn, three-quarters of the in- 

 dividuals of which produced kernels only at the 

 top of the stalk. By farther selections a race could 

 readily be produced that would bear its kernels 

 exclusively in this location. 



As a rule the plants that thus produce kernels 

 at the top of the stalk produce no ears in the ordi- 

 nary location, although a few generations earlier 

 they had produced the grain about equally in the 

 two locations. 



The chief interest of the experiment lies in the 

 demonstration that our cultivated corn, which now 

 shows the anomalous habit of bearing its poUenate 

 flowers only at the top of the stalk and its fruit on 

 the main stem below, was originally a grass with 

 the characteristic habit of bearing its grain at the 

 top of the stalk, just as other grasses — ^including 

 wheat and rye and barley, oats, rice, sugar-cane, 

 and Kaffir corn — habitually do to this day. 



The presumption is that as the corn was 

 developed under cultivation, and evolved a large 

 ear which attained inordinate size and weight, it 

 became expedient to grow this ear on the part of 

 the stalk that was strong enough to support it. 



[16] 



