ON CORN 



processes is comparatively easy; to make progress, 

 as civilized man interprets progress, is far more 

 difficult. 



One reason at least for this is that the qualities 

 that man prizes in a cultivated vegetable are 

 usually not those that adapt the plant to make its 

 way in a state of nature. They are new innova- 

 tions that to a certain extent run counter to the 

 hereditary tendencies that have been fortified in 

 the wild plant through countless generations of 

 natural selection. 



Rainbow Corn 



Interesting experiments of another type that I 

 have carried out in recent years have resulted in 

 the development of a variety of corn that has the 

 curious distinction of bearing leaves that are 

 striped with various and sundry colors of the 

 rainbow. 



The parent form from which this new race was 

 developed, I secured in 1908 from Germany. It 

 was called the quadri-colored corn. Among the 

 plants raised in the first season there were 

 two stalks, and two only, that justified the name, 

 their leaves being striped with yellow, white, 

 crimson, and green. 



The other plants of the lot bore green leaves 

 like those of other corn plants, and the seeds of 

 even the two best ones reverted. 



[19] 



