June 14 ,1924 Correlation among Quantitative Characters in Maize 
1101 
It seems worthy of note that while the plants of the F x showed a close correla" 
tion of ear length with number of rows, this correlation shrinks essentially to zero 
among the plants of the second generation. 
Contrary to the conditions found among some animals where the factors affect¬ 
ing size are found to be general for the organism, the lack of correlations among 
several of the characters studied in this hybrid would seem to indicate a rather 
high degree of independence of the factors influencing the various parts of the 
plants. 
When the probable number of heritable factors involved in these size characters 
is taken into consideration, together with the low degree of correlation, it seems 
certain that the distribution of these factors is fairly general among the 10 
chromosomes, lending support to the view that in maize the chromosomes are 
more or less duplicates of each other, each having complementary factors for 
most of the characters. 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 
The correlations among certain quantitative characters of maize have been 
studied in a hybrid between the smallest and one of the largest varieties. While 
apparently there are a great many heritable factors involved in the several 
differences between large and small varieties of maize, the correlations among the 
characters of size often are low or negligible and there seems to be no genetic 
obstacle to forming recombinations of desirable quantitative characters by 
hybridization. 
