i879-] 
Seed-Breeding, 
56i 
its parts, we find the same rule to apply. If we encourage 
an excess or produce a deficiency of leaf surface, the grain 
suffers from our interference. If we examine into the 
physiological structure of the stalk, we find that nature has 
provided the embryos of many ears, but that in the ordinary 
course of events, one ear, usually the upper one, develops, 
attracts to itself through its superior vitality the nutriment 
from the stalk, while the lower embryos are apparently 
unable to struggle against this prepotency of the one, and 
starve. We can state as faCts that in a field where the 
average productive stalk yields but one ear, and this the 
upper one, its removal will cause the next lower to develop 
and form the crop ; and thus by our interference we can 
cause the one to develop which we shall aid by removing its 
competitors in the struggle to secure the advantage. 
What conclusion, then, can be logically derived from what 
we have stated ? 
1st. It seems to us clear that our first effort for the im- 
provement of seed corn is to remove the changes which 
come through the hybridising of the corn by pollen from 
infertile stalks, as thus confining the heredity each year 
within the lines of productive parents, and thus bringingthe 
heredity to aCt stronger and stronger in the way most 
agreeable to our profits. This is one species of selection, 
one influencing of variation, the selecting of prolific parents, 
and the causing thereby of variation in the direction 
desired. This has now been practised for two years with 
the “ Waushakum thoroughbred corn,” and the effects are 
strongly evidenced already, while the show for a still greater 
improvement is very promising. The inheritance or trans- 
missal of qualities is always present in a seed, but we are 
securing the transmissal of good qualities, and eliminating 
the bad qualities — meaning good and bad in their relations 
to man — by this most influential and important method of 
selection. 
2nd. The next ‘direction for selection, as taught by these 
principles we have referred to, is of the ear. It is of advan- 
tage to seleCt seed from plants which develop twin ears, but 
as the influence of cross-fertilisation as usually allowed by 
the grower, is to introduce a tendency to barrenness, this 
way of improving our yields of corn is slow in practice, and 
possesses an element of uncertainty which should be 
eliminated. In using seed of a strong tendency towards de- 
veloping two ears to a stalk, we obtain perhaps the two ears, 
but the kernels on these two ears, perhaps, are fertilised by 
VOL. ix. (n.s.) 2 N 
