200 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



able the plant foods of your soil without inoculation of these 

 legumes. All of this is a study in itself and it is necessary for 

 us to understand the conditions from the beginning to the end 

 and make the application in such a way as to obtain the greater 

 crop with this treatment. 



(The factors are absolutely under the control of the farmer.) 

 There is no reason whatever for anyone putting into the soil 

 anything but the very best of seed. It was only a short time ago 

 that men went over the state of Iowa and took from the planter 

 boxes, seed actually being dropped by those planters in the field, 

 and at the experiment station germination tests were made of 

 these samples, and less than 65 per cent of the com germinated 

 strongly. There are ''suckers" and other people living in the 

 state of Illinois putting into their soil corn that will not germi- 

 nate any better than that which the Iowa farmers were using. 

 You are going to have trouble getting good seed due to the 

 early frost. The first frost came 28 days too early, and all 

 through the northern part of the state there is practically no 

 seed corn, and through the central and eastern parts much of it 

 has been damaged. Now the man who puts corn into his ground 

 from ears grown this year and does not first test at least six 

 grains from each ear before so doing, and is satisfied as to its 

 germination, is running a great risk, because every ear he uses 

 that is not right will cause a loss to him of from 5 to 8 bush- 

 els. You cannot afford to suffer such loss. Select your seed 

 corn carefully. I know it is too late to do it this year. There 

 are many factors, — fourteen, — that ought to be considered. How 

 about the selection of oats? I asked a class of 129 people just 

 about a year ago now, at the University, how many had ever 

 seen a fanning mill, and many of them didn't seem to know 

 what I was talking about. Often the fanning mill is run at a 

 very irregular rate while the grain runs through at the same 

 rate continuously. This does not properly clean grain though it 

 is the manner in which the work is too often done. 



The heaviest grain in the head of the oat on the average 

 is the one that is going to produce the largest yield. I know 

 this from some work that has been done, and the light grain 

 is the one that will produce the least oats. If you could take 

 the time to select the head of oats and take the highest spikelet 



