Daily south Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1881-18??, 1885-10-03
SEED CORN.
Why and When Every Good Husbandman
Should Select His Own Seed.


Should Select His Own Seed.
What man sows he reaps. The Sc
lection of seed is, therefore, of the high
est importance 10 the farmer who wants
10 reap the best and the most as
recompense for his labor. Labor
is thrown away on worthless material.
A man may spend as much skill and
pains in carving a medallion out of Il
piece of sandstone or soft slate as he
might out of hard, beautiful onyx or
the purest alabaster, and at the end he
has only trash that is worthless and
disagreeable to show for it. So man
may crib his corn in few weeks, and
in the spring, from mass of moldy
and refuse ears, he may hastily gather
seed for the next crop, but if he expects
good and abundant yield from 1t he
will be sorcly mistaken.
The enormous losses which have fall
en- upon farmers the past few years
through the use of inferior seed have
wrought damage TO the extent of mill
ions of dollars; some farmers lost near
ly their whole crop last year and the
year before, and thousands lost large
portion OF it, and all this might have
been prevented by the simple precaution
OF selecting good sound seed in the
fall. There is another fact which should
be considered, and that is that corn is
susceptible of greater improvement
through the selection and use of the
best seed than any other plant grown
upon farms, and at the same time
thus plant can be better improved by
using home grown seed than that pro-
cured at great cost from distance.
There are many wise and thoughtful
farmers who have been saving seed
from their best plants for many years
twenty, forty and some for fifty years
and their regulations for growing
good corn and large crops have made
them the seedsmen of their localities,
Farmers who might have done the
same for themselves have paid four OF
iIve prices for seed grown by these
neighDors. Perhaps this common neg
lect is necessary condition to estab-
lish the truth OF the proverb that 1.-THE
hand of the diligent maketh rich," but
at any rate the result justilies the say
ing. This self-inilicted tax paid to
the diligent seed gatherer might be
spared and the public wealth increased
by hundred million dollars if every
farmer would early begin the work OF
selecting seed corn, and hereafter take
special pains to cultivate the crops
grown from it so as to improve the gram
in every possible way. And just here we
would deprecate as strongly as posi-
BILE the so-called experiments of some
agricultural experiment stations, the
oDJect of which has been to try to
show that moldy, half-ripened, shriv-
elcd corn would grow and produce u
crop, What is the possible use of such
an experiment. 1t may serve to en-
courage thriftless farmer in neglect
ing the plainest precaution and duty,
and so injure the interests which should
be helped and encouraged by these sta
tions, but no reasonable man would
ever act upon such suggestion. Be-
sides, it is not true. 1t Is an apparent
impossibility that grain of corn deti-
cient in substance can bear germ of
sufficient vital strength to reproduce
the original quality of seed. II it were
otherwise, tnen all the claimed results
of breeders from the excellent care and
cultivation of a race of cattle and the
selection of the best dams and sires
would be falsiied, and the poorest half
starved scrub might be used as the
progenitor of a superior progeny. "As
man sows so shall he reap"
Then the farmer intent upon improv-
ing his corn will go into the field as the
ears are ripen ng and select those plants
which most nearly meet his ideal of
what the best corn should be-plants
with moderately sized and well leafed
stalks which bear two ears, both well
filed out and sound, and the earliest
ripe-and from these plants he will
choose the upper ear for seed, and mark
the stalk by tying a colored strip around
the top OF it. Or as soon as he becomes
expert and can select these stalks as he
goes along in cutting the crop he leaves
them standing until the rest is all down
and these ears are ripe and dry, and
then proceeds TO save them in the best
manner. If there is but one good ear
on stalk it may be saved, but as mul-
tiple caring is very desirable we would
choose less attractive eur from twin
bearing stalk in preference to single
ear But the top ear should always be
taken because it Is the earliest