Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1886-11-18
Saving Seed Corn.

Stephen Powers calls timely atten-
ton to the seed-corn question, and j
heartily agree with him, says a writer
in the Country Gentleman. when he
recommends the selection OF "stock
seed" from which to grow the next
Years supply. IL is by such selection
and careful breeding that most OF the
improvement IN our vegetables has
been made. II you should visit any
of our large seed-growIng firms you
would hear great deal said about
'stock Seed" and would find that
they often valued a small amount of
seed at many times its weight in gold,
or in fact they would not sell it at
any price. The seed-grower is al
ways on the watch for plant which
shows some superior quality, and
when he finds it he is will
ing to plant and select for years to es.
tablish the type. Some fifteen years
ago in husking early sweet corn /
found a dark red ear, and, never hav-
ing seen red sweet corn before, / saved
and planted it remotefrom other corn.
The first year the product was three
fourths white, and the red was of all
shades from merely tinge to the
deepest garnet. | selected the best
shaped and darkest-colored ears each
year for six years, by which time Ihad
bred out the white and secured valu-
able variety of dark-red sweet corn.
Now | see no reason why any desira-
BILE quality in corn cannot be fixed
by careful selection and breeding just
as easy as color. For a number OF
years past have not failed to select
my seed corn in October, and dry it
by fire heat and l am so thoroughly
convinced of the benefit of it that
would not sell my fire dried corn for
S. a bushel and plant seed from the
crib, even if knew the latter would
grow. There is a strength and vitali-
ty about the early gathered, fire-cured
corn which that from the crib does
not possess.
My plan of drying seed corn is this:
have a stove set up in a room that
is not plastered over head, and nail
lath to the undersIde of the upper.
floor joists all around the stove pipe
and fill in with corn. As the joists
are deep enough to take three ears,
about six superficial feet will store a
bushel. and this enables me to put up
five or six bushels OF corn, and not
any of it is more than four feet from
the stovepipe. When first put up
corn in this way / was afraid it would
get too hot, but as an experiment l
placed some ears within foot of the
stovepipe where a hot fire was kept
all winter, and the ears would get so
hot every day as to be uncomfortable
to handle, and these ears tested in the
following March gave an unusually
vigorous plant.
| believe that earliness can be best
secured by gathering the corn before
fully ripe, for there seems to be a kind
of instinct in plants-which has BEEN
noticed and referred to by many able
writers-which leads them to adapt
themselves to circumstances, and the
plant grown from early gathered seed
seems to put forth every effort to ma
ture early.
II, rs i firmly believe, we can add
from 10 to % per cent. to the yield of
our corn by careful attention to selec-
ton and breeding OF the seed, who can
afford to neglect it, and in what other
way can We get as much profit out OF
little labor? There have been many
seasons when in my neighborhood, a
large percentage of the farmers have
had but half crop ofcorn on account
of poor seed, which necessitated re-
planting the crop