4 
In Planting 100 Acres of Hybrid Corn, Plant at Least 3 Hybrids. 
Benefit of 30 Years 7 Experience in Growing Corn 
300 head of very fine white faces which will go East to 
New York butchers about April 1 to 15th and should 
weigh 1400 lbs. 
While we have been growing corn for more 
than 40 years, we have been specializing for 
30 years in the production of high-grade seed 
corn. We are glad to give you the benefit of 
this experience. If you will let us know the 
type of soil you have, the fertility level, what 
you want to do with the corn—whether to 
market or feed—how early you can plant and 
whether you pick with a mechanical picker or 
by hand, we shall let you know the best 
adapted Hybrids for your planting. 
We are not only in several businesses and 
doing a lot of farming but also feed consider¬ 
able corn—feeding this winter about 1,000 
bushels of corn a week to over 200 head of 
heavy cattle and about 400 head of - hogs. 
With this livestock experience we know some¬ 
thing about what Hybrid is best adapted for 
feed and the value of Hybrid corn as feed 
compared with open-pollinated corn. 
How Inbreds Are Produced 
The picture at the right shows how stalks are bagged in making inbreds. This may be old stuff 
to you, but we find many who do not understand how inbreeding is done. 
First, we place a glassine bag (which is transparent) over 
the shoot before any silks appear. When the silk comes out 
sufficiently for pollinization, a bag is placed over the tassel 
clipping this tightly around the stalk so no pollen is lost. 
Sixty percent of the pollen shed from a tassel is usually shed 
between the hours of 6 and 11 in the morning, so we put 
these tassel bags on soon after noon. The next afternoon the 
shoot bag is removed, the pollen shaken from the tassel into 
the bag. Then the bag containing the pollen is turned upside 
down over the shoot. By so doing, the pollen falls on the silk 
(which is a hollow tube) leading to the egg cell on the cob. 
The pollen follows down the silk, which usually takes about 
24 hours. There may be 20 grains of pollen coming down 
this tube; but, as soon as the first grain of pollen reaches the 
egg cell on the ear, fertilization takes place in about 5 min¬ 
utes and all the other pollen grains stop where they are in 
this tube. 
When the egg cells form on the ear, which is the mother, 
they start from the butt of the ear. The tassel is the male 
which furnishes the germ of life. A good average tassel 
sheds about 20,000,000 grains of pollen. As soon as fertiliza¬ 
tion takes place a grain of corn starts to grow. If no fertiliza¬ 
tion there will be no grain of corn for that silk but a blank. 
Heat and drouth often kill the pollen which makes ears only 
partly filled. 
Nature is a wonder to the plant breeder, and the more we work with her the more wonderful it 
seems. For instance, Nature’s plan is for a corn plant not to bloom at the same time the egg cells 
on the cob are ready to be fertilized. By this plan, the ear is cross-fertilized from other plants 
and but little inbreeding takes place. 
Naturally there is a small amount of inbreeding, and this is why you have heard farmers say, 
“I have had my corn for a long time, and it is run out.” This simply means that for a good many 
years there has been some inbreeding going on which has ruined the corn. They do not know why 
this has happened but this is the reason. Often a nice big corn plant growing alone in the garden 
will produce but a small, partly-filled ear of corn. The reason for this is that no pollen from other 
plants are there to fertilize it. This is what makes inbreeding or selfing of the corn so hard to 
do as we are working against Nature and usually get only a nubbin with a few grains on it. This 
is all we have to plant after years of work. Good Hybrid corn can never be produced at a low price. 
This shows how stalks are bagged 
for selfing or inbreeding corn. For 
the year 1938 we used 30,000 bags for 
selfing, making single crosses and In¬ 
creasing inbred lines. 
Single Crosses 
After all these years in producing these inbreds, we now take two inbreds which have proven 
to make good crosses and use one as an ear parent or mother, planting two rows of this inbred. 
We take another inbred to use as the "daddy” or pollinator, planting one row. As soon as the ear 
parent tassels come out of the boot, they are pulled before they shed any pollen. The tassels from 
the pollinators shed pollen on the two ear parent rows, fertilizing these rows from which the sin¬ 
gle cross is picked. We must have two single crosses before we can make a double cross so this 
process must be gone through again in the same way to produce the other single cross. 
