HARVESTING AND STORAGE 



493 



463. Country Damage. — In some seasons the maize crop CHAP, 

 is characterized by inferior quality in two directions: (1) by XI " 

 the abundance of poorly filled grains ; (2) by the prevalence 

 of discoloured or rotten grains. 



Rotten grains occur largely at the tips of the ears, and are 

 then due to weathering from exposure of the tip to the heavy 

 rains of late summer. This exposure is caused by the short- 

 ness of the husks, which in many cases allow the tip of the 

 ear to become exposed. This character is one that can and 

 should be bred out by breeding from parent plants having 

 ears well covered by the sheath. 



In some cases the whole ear is made up of these rotten or 

 discoloured grains ; this is sometimes due to breakage of a 

 weak stem, which allows the ear to fall to the ground, where 

 it lies in the wet till harvest. 



Where maize is grown on a large scale it is desirable that 

 some means of removing damaged grains should be devised. 

 Such damaged grains are lighter than sound ones ; by careful 

 weight of a large number the writer found a difference of 33 

 per cent to 40 per cent in their average weight as compared 

 with an equal number of good grains, as shown in the follow- 

 ing table (LXII); the weights were taken 30 October, 1909, 

 at the end of the dry season. 



Table LXII. 

 RELATIVE WEIGHT OF SOUND AND COUNTRY DAMAGED GRAIN. 



1 Tea-box full of good grains weighs 



1 ,, „ bad ,, ,, . . . 



Difference in weight . 



Percentage difference . 



1 Tea-box full of unselected grains weighed 



500 good ,, ,, ,, weigh 



500 bad ,, ,, ,, ,, 



Difference in weight ..... 

 Percentage difference ..... 



Hickory King. 



41 ozs. 



32-5 .. 



Io'tca Silver-mine. 



42 ozs. 



30 



With such a marked difference in weight it should be 

 possible to remove the bad grains by means of a winnower or 



