220 MAIZE 



CHAP, selecting must know thoroughly what points to select, and this 

 v ' knowledge depends on an intimate acquaintance with the laws 

 governing the transmission of characters. The day of empiri- 

 cal selection has passed ; it can no longer be left in the hands 

 of the ordinary farm labourer. 



178. Field Selection of Parent Ears. — If we select only 

 from among harvested ears, we cannot tell whether the mother 

 plant was vigorous or weakly, tall or short, leafy or sparsely 

 leaved, subject to rust or rust-resistant, or whether a particular 

 ear has grown at the right place on the stem, or has had a 

 desirable shank. All these points and many others have a 

 definite bearing on the future yield of the crop to be grown, 

 for they are correlated with characters directly concerning 

 yield. Field selection is obviously most important. 



Good ears cannot come from poor plants any more than 

 good wool from poor sheep ! And the one is as likely to pro- 

 pagate its kind as the other. A sheep with a poor constitution 

 would not be used in a good stud flock. No more should the 

 grain from a maize plant with a poor constitution be used for 

 seed purposes, for it will not produce a heavy crop. It is not 

 sufficient to select all the largest ears at harvest to be used for 

 the seed plot. The large ear does not always come from a 

 plant desirable in other respects. In breeding for wool, a 

 sheep farmer does not base his selection of his stud sheep 

 solely on the amount and quality of the wool. A shapely 

 body and robust constitution also take an important place in 

 the list of characters which make up a desirable stud sheep. 

 Plants like animals are living things with varying degrees of 

 vigour. As with live stock, it is important that we make 

 a similar study of desirable points in selecting our parent 

 seed plants. In order to produce good crops we must begin 

 with the mother plant in the field, and that plant must be 

 vigorous, must have plenty of leaf surface, produce large 

 ears, and possess other qualities correlated with the characters 

 which our standard demands. 



Having in mind the standard of stalk, leaf, ear, and shank, 

 it is necessary to select 100 to 500 plants which come as close 

 as possible to that type ; these should be marked conspicuously 

 so that they will be found at harvest time. A field of from 

 15 acres to 30 acres should be chosen for this purpose. The 



