The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-06-25
WHY THE CORN PLANT DEeENERArEs

this journal, has often heard neigh
boring farmers say that their wheat,
or oats, or corn, as the case may
have been, was running OUT
The term running out" is com
monty used in connection with a
variety which is losing it's product.
iveness. The. average farmer knows
that his corn is running out" when
its yield and quality are annually de.
olining. But he knows not the cause
thereof.
Our improved breeds of corn, of
which there are actually only few
which have been bred up during the
past 80 years, Notwithstanding the
host of so-called wonderful novelties
annually introduced,) have been ar
tificially created, and adapted to
mans neeGs and fancies, and are
artificially maintained by careful
breeders. When the seed of a new
dominant or cosmopolitan highly
bred variety of corn first goes from
it's breeder with f1xity of type, and
harmonic, flexible, and prepOtent or
ganization, it easily for a time, or
years perhaps, buoyantly adapts
itself to various soils and climates.
Most especially is this the case if
the seed has been transported from
the locality of the plants greatest
perfection. Not so with many of
the so-called wonderful corn novel
ties which evidently have sprung
from old degenerate sorts, which are
annually introduced. Owing to these
serious defects they cannot be rated
as cosmopolitan varieties. And when
transported to various soils and
climates, their constitutions receive
so great shock by the operation of
local endemic conditions, that they
in year or two, break up into
multitude of degenerate types; in
other words, ''run out.
When wellbred corn first goes
from its breeder with a strongly
prepotent, vigorous, flexible organ
ization, it for time easily combats
and overcomes the various adverse
endemic influences which assail it.
But after two or three years of dis
continued breeding, which is gener-
ally it's fate in the hands of the aver
age farmer, its organization becomes
weaker and it readily succumbs tc
the degrading influences of inter
crossing (through the agency of
bees, insects, birds, and winds) with
the degenerate varieties which
usually abound in the vicinity of
the home of it's adaptation. AS it's
organism continues to grow weaker,
it becomes susceptible to the attacks
of parasitic fungoid diseases, and to
the uncongenial action of adverse
chemical soil constituents. These
and other causes Causes often com
bined with lack of care in what may
be termed breeding,) hurry it with
great rapidity on the down grade to
inferiority, where it becomes ex-
tinct, because improbable to culti-
vate.
There is also another cause of the
deterioration of our cultivated
plants all living vegetation natur-
ally feeds on the constituents of the
air, soil, and water; and on the
scarcity or abundance of congenial
elements in any given locality de-
pends the organic vigor of the plant.
1t has often been and is still being
demonstrated that when variety of
plant has been developed to a high
degree of perfection, by continued
good breeding, it will rapidly "back-
slide" unless it continues to pro
gress under the same good breeding
pressure which has developed it.
This is in accordance wirh an infex-
ible law of nature, that nothing can
stand still. 1t must either advance
or deteriorate. Any variety of corn
which may be grown for several
years in any particular locality, be-
comes so fitted to local endemic con-
ditions that progressive variations
cease to occur. Is has then fallen
into a state of laziness and its non
progressive adjustments can only be
broken up by removing it to differ
ant SOi1S and o1imRtas where DrO-
gressive variations begin anew.
Chas. Darwin, the great naturalist,
demonstrated TO the world that
highly bred, dominant varieties of