Show B T Is surely an amazing act that th g corn crop of tho states should av year after year only about 3 bushela to the acre the acreage planted Is increased by millions from year to year vast areas ot virgin territory are constantly being brought under cultivation it Is a matter ol 01 record that many farmers raise some as high as bushels to the acre yet the average for the entire crop Is never increased la it likely that there Is anything wrong with the government figures I 1 do not think so there Is as much care given as Is possible to insure ac curacy and I 1 daresay that many farmers even it they raise more than 80 bushels to the acre will feel fialla fled that the figures are correct from his knowledge of what the average beld is in his district the farms are tilled by a pretty good type of farmer on the whole hard working and fairly intelligent the best that we have been able to produce of the true american and for the most part the best of the sturdy bons eons of the soli from many foreign lands we have a national depart ment of agriculture that has been the envy and the copy of the world which is in a sense a farmers university and the sole aim and purpose of which has been and Is to make bet ter farmers for a generation or more it has striven by study expert ment and printers ink lavishly als to educate the farmer and bring him to a higher level as an efel dent tiller of the soil through the work of its many professors it has presumably told the farmer much about seeds and soils and methods of and ot protection from insect pests an infinite variety of details about the vital facts concerning his yet the result remains the same so tar s corn Is concerned year after year thirty bushels to the acre in almost every state in the union there Is now and has ong been an agricultural experiment station work ing in operation cooperation co with the federal de pait ment of agriculture and hand and hand with the farmers of the state to educate him the stations are equipped with professors and ex ports many of them of the highest authority in the land vast tracts are ander experimental cultivation they have been planning working testing bolls and seeds and fertilizers to aid the farmer in the exercise of economy and the growing of better crops the net results of their labors they are constantly disseminating by means of lectures and correspondence and bulletins free for all who would avail at euch yet the net result after all these years Is an average of 30 bush els to the acre for corn the agricultural colleges have gone even further than this they have in many instances not been con tent to work and lecture and print the results of their labors for the benefit of progressive farmers they have been militant in their work have instituted campaigns of aduca alon by sending out some of the pro errors on special trains right in the heart of farming districts and giving tha farmer heart to heart talks and object lessons in better farming telling him about soils methods of cultivation decd selection inviting them freely to ask to the end that he may be come a more enthusiastic worker and raise better crops although this has been going en for years and beyond question many have profited by it yes the average yield for corn the past sear was juat the bamo 80 HUE h els Is it possible that the present type of farmer has reached the limit of his capacity to improve it may be so at any rate besides all this there Is an agricultural press of vast pro portions throughout the states work ing to educate the farmers and keep him posted on everything that may be of help to him in his business many farmers take several such publications licati ons then again the tools that are available to the farmer tor his work aro far superior to what they have been in the past and are am proved every year Is it possible that the farmer Is not as a class taking advantage 0 the best tools for bis work what Is the first thing to be done in the growing 0 better corn crops I 1 think in seed selection there Is nothing startling or original in this I 1 admit it Is the doctrine that has long been preached but I 1 would simply add my testimony from the re suits of my experiments with the hope that it may lead others to try along the same lines there Is noab ing difficult about it there is certain ly nothing costly it to simply a little more thorough and intelli gent heart interest in ones labor to secure a corn that will yield tenfold what he has been accustomed to getting the farmer must breed tor results he has got to improve the corn in the same way that be would raise the standard of his stock or his flocks and once he has secured a type of corn that shows increased productiveness be must try to keep it pure avoid inbreeding and main tain its stamina with the same watchfulness and care that all breed ing demands it does not require a scientific edu cation to grow more and better corn or better crops of any kind it does require brains one of the first things to be done Is to get out of the slipshod slip shod ways of working icorn cs specially ally Is one of the most abused crops of the farm because it will grow and give some returns with a lot of neglect it gets it jn no one respect Is the average farmer more careless than in his choke of seed and this may be said to be the prime essential the farm er Is plowing performing all the operations from planting time to harvest year after year and with some of these be takes considerable pride for instance I 1 know farmers who are perfect plowmen they knew it and are proud of their skill but these same farmers are hidebound hide bound in an old custom of throwing their corn in their crib just as it la husked aid when they want seed in the spring time they go to the crib and pick out sufficient likely ears from what are left to meet their needs and let it go at that it is an enigma how a man can be so skilled as a workman in many respects and et absolutely inert to one of the most vital phases of securing perfection in that work it needs no argument for it has been demon strate dover and over again that the breeding of plants can be followed with as much certainty as to results ai the breeding of animals then why not do it the only added equipment which nine out of ten require Is the exercise of more intelligent care and precision in some of the details it seems strange but it is nevertheless a fact that most farmers are aware of what may be done in plant breeding and know the general principles but they will not wake up to a practice of them in their own in teresta it we aro to the corn yield we have got to get it in the breed it is not in the soil or the fertilizer or the weather nor in any other factor important though each may be the first essential is to breed up corn for points with the same care given to animals or fowls type quality stamina productiveness etc must be known must be sought for and improved with each season it Is not enough to pic iu perfect ears or such as may be S calve at harv est time it Is nf aary that one shall know the plant that produced the ear and all the conditions of its growth and environment there are many mysteries to be solved in this question of seed alon with the view to breeding up a more productive type of corn my own experiments in this direction will indicate some of the difficulties to be met with in husking the corn in the fall of 1908 I 1 came across just one stalk containing two ears it was the first I 1 had ever met with though upon inquiry I 1 find that farm ers do frequently come across such two eared stalks though they never pay any attention to thern but throw them in the crib with the others it occurred to me however that it would be well to plant from those two ears and endeavor to raise a two eared type one ear was of good size and the other about two thirds as big weighing them the large one weighed 14 ounces and the small 9 ounces the large ear was an average ear such as every stalk carried thus this particular plant gave 9 ounces more than any other plant this gain would mean almost a ton more to the acre if the corn could be bred to yield two ears it would mean even more if the two ears could be made to attain a good size instead of one being large and one small as in this case the corn was of a variety called yellow flint obtained originally of a nearby near by farmer from these two ears I 1 selected kernels discarding the butts and tips the field in which this was planted was fall plowed and dressed during the winter with a liberal application of a high quality of stable manure as I 1 keep such in a cement bottomed pit the two eared seed was planted at one end of the main corn field it should of course have bad a separate plot and it may be that the tendency to revert to one ear was due in part to its contiguity to the ordinary corn the kernels made hills fourteen failed to come up probably being eaten by worms or mice the termination showed very strong vital ity however of the stalks al from the two eared seed only stalks produced a double ear about ono fifth another interesting point showing clearly the tendency to reversion to remote ancestors is found in the fact that while the two seed ears were of 12 rows about 75 per cent of the yield was of one eight rowed cobs although this variety of flint corn will show frequent ears of 12 and 14 rows it may be considered properly an eight rowed type of corn thus we see that after throwing the sport of a taso cored stalk there Is not sufficient stamina in all the seeds to reproduce like the parent the corn reverted not only to the one eared but to the eight rowed type this Is one of the mysteries that will have to be solved no doubt before a highly productive two eared type ot corn can be raised with the qualities of the parent so fixed that it can be relied upon to maintain a big average yield it may be due to a weakness ot inbreeding some of the ears weighed over a pound each making over two pounds to the it this could be aver aged for an entire corn field it would I 1 yield over ten tons to the acre such may seem an exaggeration or an impossibility but it so only in comparison with what we have been accustomed to even it by judicious selection of two eared seed each year still the type could not be fixed so as to produce even yields ot the maximum amount yet it it gave an increase of 20 per cent na t did in my experiment the return would be a big one for what la involved it does not imply added cost in the production but only a greater care and interest in one s work another thing to be kept in mind I 1 in breeding up a type 0 corn for high er productiveness Is that the number of kernels to the ear and their size has an important bearing on the yield of grain A corn expert once figured out that it the productiveness of corn could be increased by only one kernel to each ear on the entire crop it would mean a gain of 60 tons of grain even though the figures be not absolute there is no gainsaying gain saying that the increase of yield would be a very big amount in the aggregate the point Is made very clearly in the accod panyong photographs which show eight ten and twelve rowed ears of corn each ear was exactly the same in weight being II 11 ounces each the eight rowed ear gave seven ounces of grain and had a cob weighing four ounces the ten rowed ear weighed up eight ounces of grain and had a three ounce cob the twelve rowed ear gave 8 ounces of grain A difference of an ounce and a half to the ear of actual grain Is an appreciable gain worth striving for but that does not mean that such is the limit of the gain to be obtained it would be quite within reason to obtain ten fold that increase the chief requisite to substantial progress in the growing 0 a more productive corn must be the skill and judgment of the worker the first essential Is no doubt seed selection but this does not merely mean the picking out of the best looking ears either at harvest time or in the husk ing it is necessary that the grower shall watch the corn from the first start of the seed and through the growing vigor productiveness and early ripening should be noted not merely in the mind but in a book and the should be marked so that they can be identified at any time my method Is to snip out little bits of tin punch a hole through them at one side and put a bit of thin wiro through and twist this loosely about the stalk when marking it ob the tin I 1 scratch a number with a sharp awl there Is not likely to occur any accident that can destroy athla tag or erase the figures |