The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1905-03-24
TIL KIdBALL graphic
cLArE T1NAN
Official Paper Of the City and County
SEED CORN GOSPEL

AoppSho elldG ollc VI UWO cars grow
on the same stalk will be Give. tina,
is, will germinnte when planted, ane
the other ear will be "dead" or partl,
so. One side Of the ear may be live
and the other side dead, and of two
neighboring kernels on the same ear
one will grow and the other will not
Our grandfathers and great grand
fathers never knew this, Simply be
cause they did not haye the time nol
knowledge to discover it. They sim.
ply picked out the most likely looking
ears, saved them for seed and planted
every kernel. When the check-row
planter was invented, all the shelled
corn went INTO the same hopper, big
kernels and little kernels, resulting i'm
an Uneven planting-some hills three
kernels, some six and some Il dozen.
1t remained for the Clarksons of the
Iowa State Register to begin the
preaching of good seed corn-but ever
they knew but little Of the scientific
method Of testing seed corn. 1t re
manned for Prof. Holden, head of the
agronomy department of the Iowa
agricultural college who, more than
any other man in the wide world. has
contributed to increase the Weld of
lowa's corn fields and thereby the pro-
tits OF Iowa farmers-a gospel that has
spread into adjoining states and still
growing.
One-fourth OF Iowa is planted to
corn each season, and it requires some
thing like 10000 0 bushels of seed to
do 1T. If half the seed corn be dead,
obviously the yield will fall far short
of what it would be with good seed.
Hence the Importance of educating
farmers to discriminate between seed
that will grow and seed that will not.
Experience has revealed to Prof.
Holden that seed dried by artificial
means is not as good as that stored
until time tor use in a dry, well VEN
tilated place, and left upon the floor
rather than in boxes and barrels. The
farmer who has not seed enough of his
own growing should buy homegrown
seed If possible; If not seed that is
northern grown eff it we're Simply a
matter of losing the price of a bushel
of seed corn imported" says Prof.
Holden, sit would not be so serious a
matter, but when we consider that a
bushel Of seed corn ought to produce
400 bushels Of corn, worth from s13O
to sl6O, the serious nature of the ques-
tton is very apparent.
Seed corn should be purchased only
In the ear, because the farmer can see
just what he has, and if he finds after
an examination that it is unsatisfac-
tory lie can reject 1T. Prof. Holden
advocates growing a limited area in
the best seed, to start with, as it will
yield superior seed for future crops.
This plan of selection, repeated year
after year, will produce corn adapted
to the soil, latitude and climate and
the conditions under which it is rails
ed. elf every purchaser will decline
to purchase seed corn except in the
ear, says Prof. Holden, "the most i'm
portant step tending toward the i'm
provement of seed corn will have been
taken" Here follows Prof. Holden's
easiest and most convenient method
Of testing seed:
Lay out the ears to be tested side
by side on the floor, remove one kerr
mel from near the butt, middle and
top of the. ear, turn the ear over and
remove three kernels in like manner
from the opposite side, making six
kernels in all, thus securing a sample
from the entire ear. Place the six
kernels at the end of the ear from
which they were taken. Be particu-
lar that the kernels do not set mixed
with the kernels from the ear lying
next to it.
Take a shallow box about two by
three feet in size, put several inches
OF moist sand, dirt or sawdust in the
bottom, place over this a cloth which
has been ruled off into squares II
inches each way. numbered one, two,
three and so on. Place the kernels