Pedigree  Seed  Corn. 
135 
individual  efforts.  It  may  be  worth  while  to  look  at  these 
particular  results  from  the  point  of  view  of  possible  benefit 
obtained  compared  with  expenditure  involved. 
The  average  yield  in  all  the  trials  of  190G-7-8  was 
53  bushels  per  acre.  The  United  States  Department  of 
Agriculture  estimated  the  average  crop  of  the  state  of  Indiana 
for  these  years  at  35|  bushels.  No  doubt,  however,  the  trial 
plots,  in  addition  to  good  seed,  had  also  in  many  cases  the 
advantage  of  selected  farms  and  selected  fields.  However  this 
may  be,  the  total  value  at  the  farms  of  the  maize  crop  of  the 
state  of  Indiana  in  1908  is  estimated  by  the  United  States 
Department  of  Agriculture  at  16^  million  pounds.  The  cost 
of  the  Indiana  experiment  station  (carrying  out  research  and 
demonstration  work  also  in  many  other  subjects)  to  the  United 
States  Treasury  is  about  4,000Z.  per  annum,  and  to  the  state 
itself  about  the  same  amount  in  addition.  This  would  therefore 
be  more  than  regained  by  the  maize  growers  of  the  state  alone 
if  the  information  derived  led  to  an  average  increased  yield  of 
only  a few  pounds  per  acre  ; and  after  allowing  for  every 
possible  experimental  error,  it  appears  fairly  certain  that 
the  state  derives  more  than  full  value  for  the  cost  of  the 
investigation. 
It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  dissociate  the  factors  which 
affect  the  average  production  per  acre,  but  a study  of  the  statistics 
of  grain  acreage  and  production  in  the  different  states  of  the 
Union  brings  out  some  interesting  facts.  Here  again  detail  is 
impossible,  but  it  is  significant  that  those  states,  of  which 
Indiana  is  one,  where  the  local  experimental  stations  are  most 
active  in  “ variety  testing,”  are  those  in  which  average  esti- 
mated produce  per  acre  is  increasing  most,  as  it  is  increasing  in 
several  of  the  eastern  and  middle  states,  notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  the  bringing  into  cultivation  of  fresh  virgin  soil  has 
practically  terminated,  and  a process  of  soil  exhaustion  is  going 
on.  For  the  ten  years  1896-1905  the  estimated  yield  of  maize 
for  the  state  of  Indiana  was  34  bushels  against  29  bushels  for 
the  ten  years  1886-1895.  Only  in  the  adjoining  maize  states 
of  Illinois  and  Ohio  are  anything  like  these  estimated  increases 
shown,  and  in  both  of  these  states  similar  variety  testing  to 
that  in  Indiana  has  been  going  on  for  over  twenty  years.  The 
estimated  average  yield  in  the  whole  of  the  United  States  was 
23'4  bushels  in  the  first  period  and  25'9  in  the  second. 
Whatever  may  be  the  verdict  on  the  value  of  any  particular 
set  of  variety  trials,  it  is  certain  that  a very  valuable  part  of 
the  work  of  the  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture  has 
been  the  demonstration  of  the  fact  that  to  get  the  best  profit 
from  corn  growing,  not  only  good  soil  conditions,  but  also 
the  best  type  of  each  species  is  necessary. 
