200 
March 28, 
KEEP THEM AT HOME! 
The following members of the New York 
Senate voted against Governor Hughes in 
his efforts to remove the Superintendent 
of Insurance. Some of them have done so 
twice—others are backsliders. All have 
proved unworthy in a fair test. Ail are in 
districts where the votes of farmers can 
defeat them. It should he the duty of 
every farmer to blacklist them and keep 
them away from Albany. Vote them out! 
.TOTHAM r. ALGOS.Norwich, N. Y. 
ALBERT T. FANCHER..Salamanca, N. Y. 
S. I'. FRANCHO')'.Niagara Falls, N. Y. 
S. PERCY HOOKER.LeRoy, N. Y. 
.10HN RAINES .Canandaigua, N. Y. 
SANFORD TV. SMITH.Chatham, N. Y. 
WILLIAM J. TELLY.Corning, N. Y. 
HORACE WHITE .Syracuse, N. Y. 
BEN.T. M. WILCOX.Auburn, N. Y. 
JOSEPH ACKROYD .Utica, N. Y. 
FRANK M. BOYCE... East Schodack, N. Y. 
FRANCIS II. GATES. . .Chittenango, N. Y. 
WM. W. WEMI’LE.Schenectady, N. Y. 
WM. T. O’NEIL.St. Regis Falls, N. Y. 
OWEN CASSIDY .Watkins, N. Y. 
CORN BREEDING. 
Recently, at a farmers’ institute, I 
heard a young man, and a bright young 
man, too, make a talk on the selection 
of corn for seed. He had a number of 
ears of corn to illustrate what he con¬ 
sidered the best ears, and on this point 
I fully agreed with him. But he ad¬ 
vised the farmers to select the best 
ears from the crib, and then to plant a 
row with each ear, and note the differ¬ 
ence in the productiveness of each row 
and then take their seed from the most 
productive row. 
Now cross-fertilization is the rule 
with corn, and the corn in that best row 
would have its seeds set mainly by the 
inferior rows along side of it rather 
than from its own pollen, and the corn 
would inherit more from the other rows 
than from the row in which it grew, so 
that there would really be a better 
chance if the seed was taken from the 
other rows rather than from the most 
productive row, since they would be 
more certain to inherit the tendencies of 
the best row. 
But, as I have often insisted, there 
is too much stress being laid on the 
character of the ear as a whole than 
on the character of the individuals that 
make up the ear. Each grain on the cob 
is the result of the impregnation and 
maturing of an individual pistillate 
flower, and in the great cloud of pollen 
that blows over a corn field it is easily 
possible that every grain on the cob may 
have had a different male parent and 
may have inherited different tendencies. 
Then regarding the ear as a unit or 
individual, when it is a great aggrega¬ 
tion of individuals is beginning the im¬ 
provement at the wrong end. 
The breeder of animals knows the 
importance of a full-blooded sire and 
knows that to breed to grade male on 
his stock is going backwards. And yet 
in planting seed from the row grown 
from an ear of corn that made the best 
product we are breeding from inferior 
sires in nine cases out of ten, and the 
pollen from the best row would have a 
greater upward tendency on the seed 
from the inferior rows. In short, in 
breeding our plants we want to make as 
sure as possible of the character of the 
pollen-bearing plants. We need to re¬ 
move the seed plant from any inferior 
males around it. Therefore the place to 
select seed for corn is not in the crib, 
though we may take that ^ corn as the 
start, but to plant a patch from the best 
ears especially for seed, and then watch 
that patch closely as the tassels appear 
and remove the tassels while green from 
every staminate plant, that is from every 
plant that makes tassels without silks, 
and not only from these but from every 
plant that does not come somewhere 
near to what we would consider an 
ideal corn plant. For any breeding that 
takes into consideration only a single 
feature of the plant is defective. We 
want to increase the productivity of the 
plant, its prolificacy in making ears; for 
it has been well proven that two 
medium-sized ears on a plant will make 
more corn than one big ear. The tend¬ 
ency nowadays is to judge com by the 
size and shape of the ear only, and 
every exhibitor tries to get the biggest 
ears and hence develops the tendency 
to make but one ear on a stalk. At the 
corn shows the premiums always go to 
the best formed ear, while there is noth¬ 
ing to show that the prize ears were not 
surrounded by inferior pollen-making 
plants, and after the ribbons are at¬ 
tached, the judge could not tell that the 
blue ribbon lot would make more corn 
when used as seed than the lots to 
which no premiums were awarded. The 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
whole system of score-card judging is 
wrong except to designate which are 
the prettiest ears: only this and nothing 
more. At a recent corn show in Balti¬ 
more there was a vast array of big 
ears and right alongside of them was a 
show of varieties of corn grown by the 
experiment station. Among these va¬ 
rieties was a small-eared dent corn 
known as Cocke’s Prolific, a variety 
which I had been experimenting with 
for years. No one seemed to notice the 
little white ears, but I am sure that I 
could plant that corn alongside the big 
yellow ears of the Learning that was 
shown and would make far more corn 
per acre than the big Learning, for _ it 
has been done. The prolific corn, with 
its smaller ears but more on the stalk, 
made 14 bushels per acre more than the 
Learning with its one big ear. Then the 
constant selection of the big ears will 
not only increase the tendency to make 
but one ear to the stalk, but will have 
also a tendency to get that ear higher 
up and with a short top above it, a char¬ 
acter of the corn that is top-heavy and 
apt to blow down easily. 
We need to take the whole plant into 
consideration in breeding. We want a 
plant that is short-jointed and leafy, 
that bears its ears about halfway be¬ 
tween the tassel and the ground, a com¬ 
pact plant that will not so easily be 
blown over. Then we want a corn that 
will average two fair ears to the stalk, 
for it is corn per acre rather than big 
showy ears that the farmer wants, and 
I do not believe that the score card 
selection will ever advance the yield 
per acre. We need to remove all dis¬ 
turbing influences around the seed plants 
and to have the ears set by only the 
best plants in the field. Then, after we 
have established a heredity of prolificacy 
and compact growth we can pay some 
attention to the formation of the ears. 
But get the prolific character first and 
then look after the perfect ears, not so 
much for size altogether, but for per¬ 
fect form, for we can get as much per¬ 
fection in a medium-sized ear as in one 
over a foot long. My ideal of a corn 
exhibition would be a show where the 
whole plant with its ears is brought 
into the show room and judged, not by 
the ears alone but by the whole char¬ 
acter of the plant. Then have a sworn 
statement as to the yield per measured 
acre, the percentage of barren stalks in 
the plot and the method of selection. 
Then we would have some common- 
sense data to go upon in selecting the 
premium crop. But as now conducted 
the shows are merely shows of big ears. 
I would rather take seed from a nub¬ 
bin that had grown surrounded by first- 
class plants than from the ear that sold 
for $250, if it was surrounded by in¬ 
ferior plants. It is the parentage of 
each grain on the ear that we must look 
after if we are to breed intelligently. 
One may go through a large field of 
corn almost anywhere and select fine 
ears by the score card though they 
were sired by scrubs all around them 
and would inherit their sire’s tendencies 
rather than their own. 
w. F. MASSEY. 
The WALLACE NEW PEERLESS 
POWER SPRAYER. 
The latest and best in the Engine 
Pump and all fittings constructed entirely 
of BRASS. Hopper-Jacket, Water-Cooled 
Engine. Price reasonable. 
We are selling these outfits everywhere. 
Let us sell you one. Write for Catalog It. 
WALLACE MACHINERY CO., 
CHAMPAIGN, ILL. 
THE NIAGARA 
GAS SPRAYER 
The Power Sprayer without a pump. Over 
fourteen hundred now in use in the United 
States. Lightest, least complicated, most durable 
and cheapest power sprayer on the market. We 
make power sprayers for every purpose. 
We also manufacture 
Niagara Brand Lime-Sulphur Solution 
The latent, be^t and mosl effective spray material for’San Jose and other 
scale insects, and for Apple Scab, bitter and brown rots of Apple, Peach and 
Grape. This wash has been fully tested for both summer and winter spray, in 
California, Oregon and Washington where it is very popular. 
It completely controls Apple Scab with no injury to fruit or leaves, as is 
so often the case with Bordeaux Mixture. 
If you have suffered from Bordeaux injury, why don’t you try this new 
wash for your summer Spray? Read what Professor Cordley of Oregon says 
in the issue of Rural New-Yorker of March the 7th, page 202, then write us 
at once. Eastern growers supplied from our New York factory. 
Niagara Brand Arsenate of Lead for codling moth. 
Ready Bordeaux for preventing fungus. 
Our machines and materials are used and endorsed by over one fourth of the 
Experimental Stations in the United States, 
SEND FOR COMPLETE CATALOGUE OF SPRAYERS AND MATERIALS. 
NIAGARA SPRAYER COMPANY, middleport.n.y. 
EDWIN C. TYSON, Flora Dale, Pa., agent for sprayers only, in the State of Pennsylvania. 
FARM SEEDS 
Medium, Mammoth, Alsike. Alfalfa, Clovers, clean 
and true to name. Timothy, etc., of extra quality. 
Direct to farmers. Price list. Write. 
STRAWBERRY PLANTS. 
If you would set the be4t send me your 
address. 202 varieties lifted. 
GEO. R. SCHAUBER, Box R., Balls'lon Lake, N. Y. 
0. C. SHEPARD CO., 37 J Street, Medina, Ohio. 
Strawberry Plants— All the leading varieties, 
new and old. Send postal for my new catalog. 
Prices $1.25 per 1000 up. David Hodway, Hartly, DeL 
STRAWBERRY PLANTS 
Thirty-five varieties from earliest to latest. 
Nicest that we ever saw and we have so many that 
it would be hard to estimate them but a million 
would not come near expressing it. Apples, Pears, 
Quinces, and all sorts of Fruit Trees and Plants. 
Nut Trees and Asparagus. Fancy Evergreens, 
Hardy Shrubs, and Hoses. 
JOS. H. BLACK, SON & CO., Hightstown,N.J. 
WE MAIL OUR CATALOGUE FREE. 
11 PM FA All Northern Grown and 
Bk I H fl I §B) UL guaranteed to he 99 per cent 
Final Hfeil n pure. Should produce hay 
at $40.00 per acre annually. Write for Free Sample 
and Instructions on growing. 
GRAIN AND GRASS^SEEDS 
Northern Grown and of strongest vitality. Wo invito you tj 
get Government Tests on our samples. Send for Cat. No. T9 
TIT 11 J. E. WING & JJROS. SEED CO. 
Box 223. ttleehanicsburg, Ohio 
ONE MOLINE 
Will Outlast Two Ordinary Wagons. When we say that 
we have the proof to prove it. Send for our Free Wagon 
Book and read how we make the Moline from start to finish, 
and you will see why the Oak and Hickory Ironclad 
wears so long. 
It’s clad in iron-bound in iron—protected with iron 
so thoroughly there’s little chance for wear. Then the 
lumber is air-seasoned for three to five years to make it 
tough. We dry in the sap, retaining the life of the wood in¬ 
stead of drying it out in a kiln, leaving it lifeless and brash. 
OAK and 
Hickory 
Iron-Clad 
is the highest type of the wagon making art. A wagon as 
good as the best materials and 53 years experience can 
produce—a wagon that will iast you a lifetime with reason¬ 
able care. Why not cut your wagon expense in half, get 
double value and satisfaction by buying a New Moline? Be 
sure to send for our book, “A Trip Through the Moline 
Wagon Works”—it’s an interesting story. Ask the dealer in 
your town to show you the Oak and Hickory Ironclad Moline. 
MOLINE WAGON CO.. Moline, III 
Handsome Watch Fob Free for this and the other five ads. spell¬ 
ing a word. Send 10 cents for packing and postage. 
Send for our Wagon Book today. 
I 
I 
) 
Let Me Pay The Post. 
oirMyiBig Free Book.. to 
Although it costs me 8c to mail every one of these Books, yet I’ll sendyouono FREE just 
because I want you to know about my Celebrated SPLIT HICKORY BUGGIES - Made to 
Order—Sold Direct from my Factories on 30 Days’ Free Trial—Guaranteed Two Years. 
Over 125,000 Split Hickory Vehicles are now in use—giving satisfaction in every part 
° f *m" yDireeiGFactory Prices save you BIG MONEY. My 1008 Book gives descriptions and 
prices of over 125 styles of Split Hickory Vehicles and Full Line of High-Grade Harness—tells 
you how Split Hickory Vehicles are made— and why they are best to buy. Write for the 
Book today. Address me personally, H. C. PHELPS. President, 
THE OHIO CARRIAGE MFO. CO.. Station 200 Columbus. Ohio. 
