Corn Investigations 
131 
Fig. 28. — Rag doll germinator test for root-rot diseases of individual seed 
ears employed in these tests. Each doll tests twenty ears, making 
640 ears per box. Four such boxes were run in one battery. The 
inside box is surrounded by three inches of moist sawdust on the 
sides and below. It has drainage holes at the bottom for draining 
off free moisture at time of sprinkling the rag dolls. This is a 
duplicate of the method recommended by Hoffer and Holbert. 
inches apart. The kernels all pointed toward one edge of the 
cloth so that the rolled up rag doll might be placed vertically 
in the germinator box with the assurance that the root and stem 
sprouts would point directly down and up respectively. This 
arrangement facilitated reading the tests and reduced the likeli- 
hood of row to row contamination of the sprouting kernels. 
The box was kept in a heated room at a temperature ranging 
from 78° to 85° F. The rag dolls were placed in the box in a 
thorolv moistened condition and sprinkled daily thereafter. The 
tests were read at the end of seven days. The sprouted kernels 
for each ear were classified into four groups, viz, (1) “disease 
free,” which included all sprouted kernels showing no indication 
