ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 237 



borne in mind that the female parent of the barren stalk was not barren. 

 It is probably much more important that we absolutely prevent self- 

 poilenation and close-pollenation by detasseling alternate rows, but even 

 this practice is still an experiment. It is very true that exceedingly poor 

 corn has been produced by artificial or hand self -poll enation but recent 

 experiments have also shown that corn may be degenerated by artificial 

 cross-pollenation; and it should be understood that our recommendation 

 to detassel alternate rows in the breeding plot is tentative, and I cer- 

 tainly would not urge this practice. Probably such detasseling will prove 

 somewhat helpful to the corn breeder, but we know that very great im- 

 provement can be made without detasseling at all, simply by selecting 

 seed on the basis of performance record and for desirable quality or com- 

 position 



