Show P i y y ev 9 4 1 F flom EL f am grass iras s to loom se as 1 4 41 atu ff fc va amar map 0 bariff boull n 0 11 1 1 I 1 A r X ile n AP f ia m 0 7 14 t mcw caber HE only plant which botanists have ever considered ns as an a 1 ancestor of our present cultivated varieties of maize Is the wild gross grass teosinte they have ion long g believed that tile the presence of indian corn or maize in america represented an evolution brought about by tile alie crude plum plant breeding methods of oc the indians and extending through untold centuries luther burbank in order to prove the truth of tills this theory carried the plant through evolutions find and produced perfect ears cars of 0 corn in the miraculously short period of 18 19 years public announcement of the experiment nelch his has been proceeding quietly at mr burbanks experimental farm in california since 1903 and which rich constitutes one of the most notable achievements of the plant wizards life has just been made it was the savage indian says sir mr burbank who gave us here in america the most important crop i we ie e have it was the alie indian who found the wild gross grass tens teosinte inte covering the plains and developed it into corn or to turn it the other way around it was the desire of the indian for a food plant like this that led the too grass by gradual adaptation tc produce maize on oil mr Bur burbanks Burbank brinks 8 farm there grows today tills same teosinte A which hibb the indian found it bears tiny ears cars with two rows of corn like kernels er nels on a cob the Il thickness lickness of a lead pencil and from two to four inches long slightly less in length than an average head of Ail wheat leat from its ita earlier stage of pod corn in which each kernel was encased in a separate sheath or tusk like alent wheat ll ent teosinte represented no douht doubt a hard fought survival arid and adaptation like that of the flowering violet and when the indians come came into its environment viron ment it responded to their influence as the pansy responded to care and cultivation in its new dooryard home home where teosinte had formerly relios upon the frosts to loosen up the ground tor for the seed it found in the indian a friend who bo crudely but efra dively scratched the soil eoll alid doubled the chance for its baby plant to grow where it had been choked by plant enemies and starved tor for air tin and sunlight by weeds it found in the indian a friend who aho cut down don arid and kept oil oft its competitors where it had been destroyed by the animals before its maturity it found the selfish protection of the savages as grateful Is as though it had been inspired by altruism planted in patches instead of struggling here and there as is best it could ix fora the teosinte grass found its 19 multiplication problem lern made 4 through the multitude of pollen gralli braini now flouting floating thrynge the air ani and so by slow glow degrees kg rees it responded in its new environment by bearing more I 1 and bigger wed fed As ag the feed beed kernels 1 increased in numbers humbert and in size the cob that bore them grew in len lentil gi it from two fw the rows of kernels in I 1 created creased to four to six to eight to fourteen nere again the selfish motives of t the savages served to help the plant in its adaptation for only I 1 tire tile largest ears and those with the best kernels were acre saved for seed so 40 under cultivation the wild glass gins almost disappeared and I 1 in n Ts ITs blare there came through adaptation tile transformed indian co corn ia tills this in brief mr burbanks theory of the original evolution of teosinte into corn how many centuries required to bring about I 1 f 4 if V C I 1 I 1 i N 1 k I 1 tva ii N ji c VA 6 the lie evolution we can call only conjecture for when ullen the lie white bilte came boino to america they found riot not the tiny wild teo teosinte Inte but indian corn or maize bearing S 8 inch ears etli 14 rows ot of improved kernels to the ear car natures response to the simple plant breeding methods of the savage it la Is not even known kaolin how long the indians had been cultivating this improved corn that it was as long iong before the appearance appen rance ot Furo europeans Penns hoi however ever Is evident not only front from its early and widespread cultivation by tribes of the area now embraced in tile the united states but from tile the fact that indications of its cultivation lon ore are found in mounds and in tile lie ancient pueblo ruins and clift di dwellings ellings in 1779 during the revolution general Sul sullivan livau led the famous punitive expedition against tile iroquois fhe nations in central new york ills his mission was kins 0 0 destroy the villages and crops of the indians the iru iro quals lived in fixed habitations and had thousands of acres of corn and orchards and it was good corn and well nell cultivated with pumpkins between the rows N the lie annual corn crop of the world ord and it is grown from cin can ada to the argentine republic arid and la in parts of europe asia africa and australla australia atti amounts to approximately three billion bushels els three quarters oi of which 1 Is s grown in the united states where it exceeds in value the combined wheat and cotton crops or four billion dollars dolia ij it must be remembered too lint between lie original wild grass and the corn which the white men found tire indian cultivating her here e there was as undoubtedly a cry 1011 long g period of ill the so called pod corn in aich which each kernel was uns enclosed in a 11 sheath sli eath when it is considered that the lie elimination of tills sheath in itself unquestionably required many centuries roi a e I 1 idea d ea may be gained of the lie probable total length of time thile necessary to develop teosinte toos inte into the perfected car of coi coin n I 1 it it was aas natures seberne of brodu producing c var variations lations her apparently unalterable will to create no duplicates that hint opened up to sir mr burbank till ills opportunity to clarry carry forward rard fo ferard the evolution of teosinte into coin in a cani pm duthely few beacons bea sons in his experiments walh N etli tile plant ix iw produced more than ten thousand specimens on ills his grounds einung these thousands he be found home offspring which were an improvement over ever the parent plants it waa as then simply a matter of continued and intensive application of 0 scientific methods of selection from sel season lson to Bin sun until the final result mai achieved teosinte Tco Teo binte has no or cob like other grains but one kernel Is filled on it tile the text nem below tile the kell kernels els when their ripe falling apart by n R gradual evolution a rachis and eventually a not hut und and litter a round cob waa its developed lind and this cob was finally covered with large urge fat kernels teosinte seeds have lave always a flint lint like cov cring but nt at the end of a few years vc burbank bin bank found an all occasional kernel that had emerged from froin ats its covering in and by breeding only these kernels the covering in time become became only a remnant at the base of tile kernels and finally disappeared altogether the ears of corn mallch alch he produced nt at the end of IS 18 years ears were equal in every respect to those which the indians with their unskilled efforts had produced after many centuries of patient toll toil land and which they were cultivating at the time the white man first came to tills his country to tile the white man la Is due the superior varieties ot of corn which are grown today during his experiments with teosinte mr burbank not only changed the plant into corn but incidentally ci produced one of the most productive fodder foi liler plants on earth and extended the latitude in wech it can be profitably grown nearly pr fir quite a thousand miles farther norah and south heretofore all teosinte had to be raised in southern florida or sonic some tropical climate but bir dur cur banks improved varieties developed as a result of ills his scientific plant breeding will produce even in the northern states 50 times as much fodder as the commonly cultivated teosinte of the south hild and 50 times the amount of grain mr air Bur burbanks brinks experiment with teosinte is i a it striking ri king example of the fact that the plant breeder simply by taking tile the variation varla tiong which nature gives him can effect wonderful improvements prove ments in her plants and by urging nature into new varl variations atlon s through cross breeding can create at will tin an infinite number of new combinations or characteristics from aich to select |