214 INDIAN CORN CULTURE. 



a larger crop was secured by detasseling. Later 

 investigations, however, in most, cases gave 

 evidence of reduced crop yield due to this 

 practice. In 1888 Shelton of Kansas found a 

 loss of nearly 10 per cent due to detasseling.* 

 Roberts in 1890, at Cornell University^ how- 

 ever, secured a gain of 50 per cent due to de- 

 tasseling, and this experiment attracted wide 

 attention to the subject.f Further work at 

 Cornell seemed to corroborate this result in a 

 measure. In 1892 there was a gain in weight 

 of good ears amounting to 15 per cent, and of 

 poor ears of 26 per cent on the detasseled rows, 

 besides being a gain in number of ears.:}: 



At the Illinois station, however, several j'^ears 

 of experimentation have shown no advantage 

 to be derived from this process, but if anything 

 a loss. At the Nebraska station, a decided loss 

 is shown from detasseling.§ Ten detasseled 

 rows 20 rods long each gave a yield of 528 lbs. 

 of corn; 10 alternate rows, not detasseled, 1,220 

 lbs., and 20 undisturbed rows elsewhere in the 

 field, 2,369 lbs. The cost of detasseling was 

 estimated at $1.25 per acre. At the Kansas 

 station in 1891 the results were adverse to detas- 



* Kansas experiment station. Report of 1888, p. 27. 

 t Cornell University experiment station. Bulletin 25, 

 1890. 



XHM., Bulletin 49, December, 1892, p. 317. 

 ? Nebraska experiment station. Bulletin No. 25, Dec. 1, 

 ",p.4. 



