82 



SEEDS AND SEEDLINGS 



Improvement of corn by seh^ction : a, improved type ; 

 b, original type from which it was developed. 



and produced a quantity of wheat now known favorably all over 

 the world as the Fultz wheat. J'>,\' careful seed selection, some 



Western farmers have 



increased their wheat 

 production by 25 per 

 cent. This, if kept up 

 all over the United 

 States, would mean 

 over $100,000,000 a 

 year in the pockets of 

 the farmers. 



Boys and girls who 

 have gardens of their 

 own can easily try 

 experiments in selec- 

 tion with almost any 

 garden vegetable. Corn is one of the best plants to experiment 

 with. Gather for planting only the fullest ears and those with the 

 largest kernels. You must also select from the plants those that 

 produce the most ears. Plant such corn grains, carefully selected, 

 in a plot by themselves in the garden, and compare their yield 

 with that of the nonselected corn. The accompanying picture 

 shows what can be done by selection. Plants thus produced 

 may become in time varieties of the original species from which 

 they came. 



Hybridizing. — We have already seen that pollen from one flower 

 may be carried to another of the same species, thus producing seeds. 

 If pollen from one plant be placed on the pistil of another of an 

 allied species or variety, fertilization may take place and new 

 plants be eventually produced from the seeds. Such plants are 

 called hybrids. 



Hybrids are extremely variable and often are apparently quite 

 unlike either parent plant. Such are some of the results of Luther 

 Burbank's work with the hybrid plums, the Department of Agri- 

 culture experiments in the crossing of oranges and lemons and the 

 formation of thousands of new varieties of garden plants of various 

 kinds — beans, peas, tomatoes, and the like. 

 By far the greatest possibilities to the farmer or fruit grower 



