74. 
This ear represented a variety of great promise, provided it could 
be retained. Its seed was therefore planted in a remote position in 
order to guard against cross-fertilization with other varieties, 121 
hills, May 19, 1885. The vegetation and growth was excellent, but 
smut was exceedingly prevalent. At harvest, Oct. 13, there were 
244 smutty stalks and 257 stalks apparently free from smut. The 
crop was very late, and there were but 310 ears harvested, of which — 
8 were smutted. But 258 ears were in a condition to be studied, 
and these gave 120 ears of red sweet corn, and 138 ears of white 
sweet corn, with white and pink cobs about equally distributed. 
The red ears were all of one shade, many were strongly tapering, 
even to cone-like, and some were fusiform, and no effect from cur- 
rent cross-fertilization appeared. 
The 188 white ears yielded but eleven which were closely resem- 
bling the ear planted; thirty-seven which might be called fusiform; 
eighty-nine strongly tapering; one white ear of unhusked dent Pod 
corn with a few sweet kernels intermixed. Some of the ears had a 
few purple sweet and yellow sweet kernels intermixed, and a very 
few yellow dent kernels. 
The noticeable features of this trial are: Ist, Not a single ear was 
as good as the one which furnished the seed. 2nd, Only about 35 
per cent. of the ears were of the typeof the ear planted. 8rd, The . 
majority of the ears were of the cone-form type so common in the 
crops from our Pod corn. 4th, One ear was dent, and precisely of 
the type of the unhusked dents described in our 1883 report. dth, 
There was but very little current fertilization, and no more than 
might legitimately be accredited to the variables produced from the 
seed used. 
Another interesting feature is the great diminution in the crop * 
produced by the smut on the plant, and the few harvested ears which | 
showed smut. As the Pod corn with us was particularly subject to 
smut, and as the kernels from but one ear were used, the great preva- 
lence of smut in the crop would indicate very strongly its trans- 
mission through agency of the seed planted. 
VARIATIONS FROM SEED. 
In a paper read before Section F. American Association for the 
Advancement of Science at the Ann Arbor meeting ; and published 
in full with additional notesin the American Naturalist, Noy., 1885, 
p. 1040, I stated;— 
** Maize.—Seed of one kind sown often produces samples of other 
kinds of corn in the crop, and these varieties can usually be dis- 
tinctly referred by name to varieties with which the original seed 
might have been crossed. Purposely hybridized seed has produced 
the original parentage without intermediate types, and seed exposed 
to hybridization during two years with many sorts of corn, has 
yielded ears of the types of corn with which cross-breeding or hy- 
bridization hag been effected, without appearance of intermediate 
forms.” | 
The possession of colored drawings of most of the varieties 
grown at the Station the past few years, renders possible the identi- 

