INHERITANCE—IMPROVEMENT BY BREEDING 223 



primary consideration, the points on which selection is made CHAP, 

 can be reduced to the following : — V- 



1. Size and weight of ears ; , 



2. Depth of grain ; 



3. Closeness of rows (i.e. narrow sulci) ; 



4. Regularity of rows ; 



5. Regularity of grain ; 



6. Shape of ear, and character of tips and butts ; 



7. Yield of grain per ear. 



Fig. 88. — Selecting seed-maize : the final selection. 



All these points have a direct bearing on the yield per acre. 



The final selection consists in classifying the picked 100 

 ears into groups of ten each, according to depth of grain and 

 size and weight of ear, etc. (Fig. 88). The weights of each 

 group of ten are then taken ; they are arranged in a row, with 

 the twenty best ears in the centre, the next best next, and so 

 on, the poorest of the 100 occupying the two ends of the row. 



In the final selection too much reliance must not be placed 

 on weight or size of ear. The writer has frequently found that 



