C orn In v estimations 
125 
trasted for yield with standard medium rough ears of the same 
variety. The smooth surpassed the rough type 4.0 bushels per 
acre. This was a test of continuous selection in which seed for 
the smooth type was repeatedly selected from the smooth type of 
the preceding year. 
In all three of the preceding experiments, covering a total of 
twelve different years, the long, smooth type of ear surpassed 
all other types. There are seasonal fluctuations in which the 
rough equals or surpasses the smoother corn, probably owing 
largely to climatic conditions favoring the plant type which the 
rougher ears represent. Since we can not foresee the sort of 
weather which the season will bring forth, it would seem ad- 
vantageous to select a somewhat longer, smoother, and shallower 
grained ear type wherever the corn being grown is a full-season, 
late-maturing crop. This general conclusion has been reached 
at least in Ohio, Illinois, and Kansas in addition to Nebraska. 
Experiments in these four states and in Minnesota and New 
York have indicated that ear type considerations aside from 
maturity, soundness, and adaptability are rather neutral in their 
relation to yield. 
The relation of kernel depth to moisture content and freezing 
injury in a year of late maturity in the fall was shown force- 
fully in a field of Hogue’s Yellow Dent corn at the Experiment 
Station in 1917. The ears harvested from this field on Decem- 
ber 29 were divided into five groups according to their apparent 
soundness, maturity, and solidity. The moisture content, germi- 
nation, and kernel length were determined for the grain in each 
group. Beginning with the most solid and mature group, the 
germinations, after curing, for the five groups were respectively 
93, 59, 14, 5, and 0 per cent. The moisture contents at time of 
husking, December 29, were respectively 15, 16, 19, 21, and 28 
per cent, while the average kernel lengths were 0.49, 0.50, 0.52, 
0.54, and 0.57 inches. The deep kernels, representing later ma- 
turing plants, contained more water at the time of freezing 
weather, and for this reason were more subject to freezing in- 
jury. Extensive data regarding the correlation between mois- 
ture content and susceptibility to freezing injury have been re- 
ported in Agricultural Experiment Station Research Bulletin 
No. 16. 
There has been considerable controversy in the past fifteen 
years regarding the relation of ear type to yield of corn. In 
lieu of actual experimental evidence, a sudden public interest 
was gratified for a time in the early nineties by comparing vari- 
