THE IMPORTANCE OF BROAD BREEDING IN CORN. oe 
worked great injury to the cause of corn improvement. To the few 
successful breeders who have produced varieties of lasting value 
uniformity has not signified an identity of measurable characters, 
but is a kind of similarity of expression, so to speak, by which the 
breeder recognizes a family resemblance, much as we recognize the 
relatives of our intimate friends, although at a loss to indicate 
wherein the resemblance hes. Thus to an experienced breeder two 
ears of corn, with measurable characters that coincide as closely as 
possible, will immediately be recognized as belonging to different 
types. The ears and grains may be of the same size and shape, the 
color and indentation the same, yet to the practical breeder the two 
ears would appear to be lacking in uniformity. Conversely, ears 
which are obviously dissimilar in these particulars will promptly be 
recognized as belonging to the same strain. 
The score,card was an attempt to reduce this intimate and almost 
intuitive knowledge of the practical breeder to an exact science for 
wider application, but it has proved a lamentable failure—lamentable 
because it gave rise to the idea that the uniformity of score-card 
ratings was the kind of uniformity which successful breeders con- 
sidered essential to valuable strains of corn, and because uniformity 
in score-card ratings can only be secured by rigid inbreeding. 
CULTURAL TENDENCIES TOWARD INBREEDING. 
The cultivation of corn is of very great antiquity in America, and 
the cultural operations to which it has been subjected from the earli- 
est periods have differed radically from those apphed to other crops. 
With primitive people the seed of other cereals is unavoidably mixed 
in planting, but corn is usually stored on the cob and the ears used 
for seed are carried into the fields at the time of planting, and the 
kernels shelled off as they are to be dropped into the ground. Thus 
the plants from the same parent ear grow up together, and with 
most primitive tribes, though the plantings may be considerable in the 
aggregate, the individual fields are in most cases so small that one 
or two ears will often suffice for the entire field. The opportunity 
for crossing is thus very shght. It would be natural for even the 
most primitive man to select for seed the largest ears or those that 
particularly caught his fancy, and the same type would be selected 
year after year. The seed ears also figure in many religious cere- 
monies, which no doubt tends to the establishment of definite standards 
of selection. 
It is universally believed by the Indians of Central America that 
the varieties of corn in each locality are best adapted to that locality, 
and that other varieties brought in from other regions never yield 
so well. That this belief is well founded has been demonstrated by 
141— IV 
