CHAPTER V. 
SEEDS. 
HE expense and labor of preparing and till- 
ing soil is too great to allow you to plant 
poor seed. The stock-breeder does not 
take his sickliest, poorest specimens for breeding 
purposes, but rather selects the best and most 
nearly perfect specimens; you should be careful 
to do the same with your plants. The farmer’s 
work is just as important as the stock-breeder’s. 
It should be the aim of each to improve the 
strain and produce the best possible result. 
Therefore, if you are growing corn, plant seed 
only from the stalk that produced the most 
and the best ears of corn. It is good to send 
fine ears to market and get the best price for 
them, but if you save only your scrubby ears 
for seed, next year you will not have fine, 
perfect ears of corn to send. So select of your 
very best for seed purposes, and if your best is 
not good enough, then buy from a better grower 
who has the best. Aim to produce an ideal ear 
of corn. It can be done, and you might as well 
do it. Only in this way will you find your corn 
crop paying you for your time and labor. If 
you carefully follow this every year, you will 
find your acre annually producing more and 
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