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PUBLISHED IN THE INTEREST OF BETTER SEEDS 
Vol. 18 CORNELI SEED COMPANY, ST. LOUIS, MO. Special Issue No. 2 
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adverse conditions. If your soil is average or less in 
fertility, choose a crop or variety that fits that type of 
soil, not a crop which requires a deep fertile soil for good 
results. 
Source of seed must also be considered. Methods 
employed in seed production and processing play an 
important part in the ultimate yield of a crop grown 
from that seed. This is particularly true in the case of 
hybrid corn, where careful handling is so necessary to 
the production of pure seed. Tests have shown over a 
wide area and through a period of several years that 
there is often a distinct difference in the yield of the same 
hybrid when produced by different growers. 
Why Is Source of Seed Important? 
The production of hybrid seed corn may be divided 
into three main phases — breeding, growing, and process¬ 
ing. All of these phases are about equally important — 
good breeding, because it insures top yields of sound 
grain; careful growing, because here especially, careless¬ 
ness results in impure seed; and proper processing because 
it insures evenness in planting and fewer broken or 
diseased kernels. 
Breeding: The breeding behind any hybrid deter¬ 
mines the ability of that hybrid to yield. At Keystone 
Valley Farm in St. Louis County, Missouri, Corneli 
Seed Company carries on a complete corn breeding 
program. Highly trained corn breeders direct this pro¬ 
gram in a search for new inbred lines and new combina¬ 
tions of inbred lines that will increase yield over the 
Food for Defense —- a national program aimed at 
increasing the efficiency and scope of farm production. 
This program brings home to us more vividly than ever 
before, the necessity for putting every farm unit on a 
maximum production basis. “Increase production and 
keep production costs down” will be the slogan of most 
farmers for 1942. 
Crop production is based on three primary factors — 
soil, weather, and seed. The amount of control which the 
farmer can exercise over these factors through proper 
farm management varies. The seed factor is the only 
one that can be completely controlled by the farm 
operator — the soil factor can be controlled to a large 
extent by proper farming operations, and the weather 
is left completely outside the possibility of control. 
Of the three factors, seed is one of the most important. 
Many times the quality of seed used to grow a crop is 
the difference between success or failure. Good, virile, 
carefully bred, adapted Keystone Hybrids remove the 
guesswork on seed, and the best yield that soil and 
weather will permit can be expected. The loss sustained 
from the use of poor seed is two-fold — lower production 
and lower value for what is produced. 
Adaption is important in choosing your seed. Seed 
cannot be expected to do an efficient production job 
unless it is fitted to your particular growing conditions. 
Here is an example of how the selection of seed may have 
an important bearing on the weather and soil factors. 
If adverse weather conditions affect your crop yields, 
choose a variety which has the highest resistance to those 
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