76 TRANSACTION'S OF TlfE TEXAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
could be founds and especially ears of poor quality, with many smooth 
kernels, and the rest often imperfectly wrinkled. In ears of first quality, 
that is, large ears well filled out, this was not so perceptible. 
Variation in the height of the stalk and in the time necessary to reach 
maturity has long .ago been observed in Indian corn, when brought from 
one latitude to another. Thus the seed com, which in 1882 was im- 
ported into northern Illinois from southern Kansas, produced stalks and 
leaves nearly twice as large as native seed, but not a single ear reached 
maturity. Last year much seed corn was imported into southern Texas 
from Missouri that produced stalks 5 to 6 feet high on land which 
usually produces stalks 8 feet high from native seed; but the yield was 
not reduced and the corn matured much earlier. Prof. Sehubeler, 
director of the botanical gardens in Christiania, Norway, says (Pflanzen- 
welJt Norwegens, pp. 106, 107,) that he had experimented with maize at 
that place for twenty years, and that the White Dent corn had reached a 
height of 15 feet, but did not mature its ears. A large variety, the 
Golden Sioux, the seed of which he received from New York, reached 
the first year a height of 10 to 12 feet; after two or three years it grew 
only 7 to 8 feet high, and became each year earlier. 
Prof. Broungart makes the following interesting statements concern- 
ing American Dent corn, when brought to Germany (Der Futter-masbau, 
p. 9): “If seeds are taken in a good season from plants which are, for 
example, 4 m. high, and they are sown the coming year, then we obtain 
plants which under favorable climatic conditions are somewhat less in 
height, but richer in seed, which at the same time may already show a 
change, a transition from American Dent corn to European round corn. 
If again seed is sown the next year, then plants arise which are still 
shorter and still more round-kerneled; so that, after six or eight years, 
the true imported, tall-growing Virginian Dent corn undergoes a com- 
plete metamorphosis, from which a so-called European maize arises, a 
plant climatically less fastidious, reaching only a medium height, even 
under favorable conditions, and which produces more rounded kernels 
and is more suitable for cultivation. 
The question now arises as to the causes of these variations, especially 
as to the size, of the plants, when maize is brought from one latitude to 
another. As already shown in Table II., the cause can not be attributed 
to difference in the temperature during the time of growth, nor to in- 
sufficient amount of moisture during the same period; for, besides the 
rainfall recorded in Table II., the ground had received heavy showers 
during the winter and spring at College Station. The soil, it is true, is 
somewhat poorer at College Station than at Cornell, yet it is very similar, 
being mostly made up of a grayish stiff clay. The last crop grown upon 
