A word about the barren stalk. The loss in our corn fields on account of barrenness amounts in some seasons to a considerable per cent. Whether it can be eliminated by breeding I am not so sure. Of one thing I am sure; there is a wonderful variation in the number of barren stalks year by year apart from the efforts of the corn breeder. Certain it is that the season has a great Ideal to do with the amount of barrenness. I want to call your attention to the effect of season and fertility upon the number of barren stalks (Chart 7) as shown by careful counts made in our fertilizer work with corn three different seasons. We have first the thirteen plots which are treated with complete fertilizer, so-called-those carrying nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium-with the number of barren stalks per plot for the three different years, 1896, 1897 and 1902. The variety of corn was the same each season and culture and fertilizer the same. Taking the average for each season you will note that in 1896 the plots averaged twenty and five-tenths barren stalks; in 1897 eighty-one and two

tenths, in 1902 twenty and four-tenths. In per cent. of barrenness they run two and one-fourth per cent, nine per cent. and two and one-fourth per cent. Four times as much barrenness in 1897 as in 1896. Surely the season must have a vast deal to do with it.

And you will note that we have practically the same differences the different seasons on the no-fertilizer plots; and in addition you note a considerable difference the same season between the fertilized and the unfertilized plots. To get at the matter quickly, the average number of barren stalks per plot for the three seasons was forty and seven-tenths upon the fertilized plots and eighty and three-tenths upon the unfertilized, the per cent. of barrenness being four and five-tenths per cent. and nine per cent. respectively. This variation, remember, is independent of any detasseling of barren stalks, of any selection to weed out barrenness. I can imagine that had I been working to weed out barrenness upon plot sixteen, for instance, and had succeeded in the year 1896 in reducing it down to one and five-tenths per cent., I should have felt very good indeed at least until the following year when I had counted up thirty-five per cent. of barren stalks. Please remember that the crop of 1896, which produced only two and one-fourth per cent. barren stalks, furnished the seed for harvest of 1897. And also remember that 1896 was the most favorable corn season in the decade, and 1897 one of the worst-especially so in northeastern Ohio.

In addition to the effects of season and fertility I should mention the rate of seeding. With all other conditions the same the past season, we found as low as one and seven-tenths per cent. barrenness where we had two plants per hill, and ten and seven-tenths per cent. with five plants per hill. The great influence of season, of fertility, of rate of seeding almost leads the corn breeder to think that his part in the matter is slight. In our corn breeding work we have seen very little evidence that would lead us to believe that there was anything hereditary in barrenness; and yet it is a matter that needs further investigation.

Shall we then not detassel barren stalks? As a matter of fact it is a little difficult to be real sure when the tassel first shows whether a plant is going to be barren or not. We can, however, detect weakness, lack of vigorous growth, and it is perhaps of as great, or even greater importance, that such plants be detasselled than the barren ones alone. This, of course, for the breeding or seed plot only.

I may say in conclusion that the few facts gleaned from the Station corn fields seem to show that undesirable characteristics in the ear of corn perpetuate themselves in their offspring with great certainty, save when such characteristics may be due to accident and therefore temporary in their nature; that there is a close connection between vigorous plants-large yields of stover-and large yields of grain. More time will be needed and larger numbers of tests to determine what relation per cent. of grain may have to yield, but it will not be unexpected if a good sized cob is associated with the vigorous plant and the large yield of grain.

That the protein content of corn has little or no effect upon the yield, at least when the supply of humus is abundant.

That two ears of corn to the stalk is not an important factor in increasing the yield.

That factors over which the corn breeder has little control make for or against barren stalks with a degree of success which discounts anything the breeder is able to do.

All of which is subject to revision creases with the progress of the seasons.

without notice as our knowledge in(Long applause.)

This excellent paper is

The President: Ladies and Gentlemen: now for your discussion. We will spend a reasonable length of time in questions or in statements as to the subject in hand. My old admonition again, be prompt and alert in what you say, for we must have done with this program before nightfall.

Mr. Begg: I would like to ask Mr. Williams if the season did not have something to do with the production of the greater part of barren stalks in the column of 1897? Wasn't it dryer that year than usual? My recollection is that that year was very dry, and it may be that had something to do with it.

Professor Williams: Yes, that was a point that I tried to make— the effect of season upon barrenness. The year 1896 was perhaps the best corn year of the decade, and 1897 was one of the very worst. I think in northeastern Ohio it was about the worst of the decade.

Mr. Begg: Naturally, we would suppose if the season controlled it, we would have little or no control over it, any more than we would overcome the effect by producing moisture in the soil.

Professor Williams: Yes, sir; but remember that weather conditions, fertility, rate of seeding-all have a bearing, and possibly inherited tendencies.

Professor Lazenby: There was one point that interested me very much in this very interesting address. That was the fact brought out by Professor Williams that the bare tip was due to imperfect pollenation. Now, I must admit that I think a little too much stress, perhaps, has been put upon that point, and for this reason, in tests that I have made in artificially fertiliziug corn, I find that wherever the pollen is blown in that way, the kernels are distributed throughout the ear, and I never have been able to quite believe that when an ear had perfect corn-that is, was perfectly filled with corn, up to a certain point, and then none appeared, that it was a matter of lack of pollenation entirely. It may be in part, but not entirely. The corn is not a fruit in itself, but the whole ear itself. The cob of the corn is nothing but a branch, and the kernels of corn on this branch are just like the fruits on Mr. Miller's plum trees, or anything else, and I think that the lack of the filling out of the ear is more largely due to the fact that that individual ear has not the knowledge, we might say, or the ability, to produce perfect fruition, the flowers at the top of this branch not being in condition to receive it at the time it fell.

Now, I do not wish to speak too positively on this, and I think we want to be fair to both sides; we do not want to say that the male organ or the female organ may be lacking or to blame. But to put it all on to the lack of pollenation is not quite fair, and, perhaps, you gentlemen have observed that whenever a corn stalk grew by itself, as they accidentally do, occasionally, and where we know fertilization is very imperfect, that

there we are likely to find kernels on the corn all in one place, at the base of the cob, or we are likely to find the kernels distributed on the limb or shorter branch.

Mr. Chauncey: I would like to ask the professor, in those seed ears whether they used all the grain on the ear, or whether the tips or butts were shelled off?

Professor Williams: The tips and butts were shelled off.

A member: I would like to ask a question of the professor. If his address reveals anything, it reveals that great care should be taken by the farmer to select his seed corn, and I would suggest that a great deal of time and a great deal of labor is necessary for the proper selection of that corn. Is not this fact then the one that has led to the organization of corn breeders' societies, whereby they can secure someone to take charge of a breeding plot, that they may not be bothered with the work necessary to get the corn for them?

Professor Williams: I think corn breeders may be very helpful to each other by organizing. The improvement of our seed corn is a vital, if not an easy proposition. Progressive farmers will not care to turn it over to others, particularly to breeders of other states, for corn improvement, unlike some other crops, must ever be a local matter. Ohio might well have an organization of her own corn breeders.

Mr. Rankin: I would like to ask Professor Lazenby if he thinks his explanation of the imperfect filling out of the ear would affect the grains that were perfect on that ear; whether it would affect the reproduction of it; I would like to know what he thinks about this question.

Professor Lazenby: No, sir; if the grains were perfect, and the pollenation perfect up to a certain point, I do not think it would. I would like to think of an ear of corn just as I like to think of a nicely fruited branch on a fruit tree, and we know that the branch can only perfect so many fruits. Now, we know the corn has got in the habit-many of our varieties of filling right out to the end, whose every flower is perfect, and if pollenated, producing its fruit. But we have some other very good corn, and I think where we find that lack of filling out to the end, it is due sometimes to lack of pollenation probably, but in other cases often due to the fact that that particular stock has only the strength to produce so many flowers that were capable of being fertilized.

Mr. Rankin: Simply because they were not filled out to the end would not necessarily cause them to be rejected, would it?

Professor Lazenby: No, sir: not wholly. I think that was brought out in the experiment.

Mr. Snider: I don't exactly get that right. Does the protein reproduce itself in the ears that had the more protein?

Professor Williams: Yes. In the breeding work which I have reported, while yield was the main object aimed at, each seed ear was

analyzed for its portein content. They varied in per cent. of protein from 8.56 per cent. to 14.63 per cent. The seed which had the most protein. and the best protein ancestry yielded corn with high average protein

content.

Mr. Snider: I would like to ask another question of the speaker, if he will be kind enough to answer. I have heard it said that the kernels on the butt end of the ear are formed first, and so by planting those for a number of years, you would get an earlier ripening corn than by planting the middle or any other part of the ear. I would like to know whether such is the case or not?

Professor Williams: I may say that Professor Hickman conducted experiments for nine years, in which kernels from the butt and middle. and tip were planted, year after year, and each year after the first the butt kernels, for instance, were taken from seed ears grown from butts the year previous; the same with the tips and the middle of the. ear, and there was practically no difference in yields, and as I understand it, no difference in season of maturity.

Mr. Snider: Then it makes no difference what part of the ear you plant?

Professor Williams: No, sir; save that a more uniform stand can be secured from kernels of uniform size.

A member: In our locality, a few days in the time of ripening made a great deal of difference in the yield of corn. In going through a piece of corn before cutting, some ears seemed to be ripe, while others were not. Can we, with the same variety of corn, get an earlier maturing corn by going through the corn and selecting these ears that ripen first?

Professor Williams: Yes, sir; I think you can affect the earliness of your corn by that sort of selection. I would not, however, remove the ear from the stalk at that time. There is no place so good for that ear for some time as on the stalk. Tie a string to the stalk so you can find it and leave it there until the field is husked.

The President: We will have to close the discussion in five minutes. A member: Did I understand Mr. Williams to say that the use of seed ears that filled out over the tip would tend to shorten the ears?

Professor Williams: I think if you select seed corn with that one end in view that will be the tendency. The completely capped ear nature has finished. She has done all she could for it. Likely she could have done no more, even under more favorable environment. Whereas, the ear with bare cob at the tip was looking for something in the way of environment which it did not receive. Its use for seed would tend to lengthen the ear and likely call for a longer season.

Mr. Taylor: As I was called out, I intended to ask Mr. Judy how he cared for seed corn. I did not get the chance at the time. Mr.