Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-02-25
TO DOUBLE THE CROP
What Can Be Done. in the
Matter of Corn.
VALUE OF GOOD SEED
EXCELLENT RESULTS OBTAINED
FROM BREEDING FARMS
How the Principle of Selection is Being
Utilized-Recent Important
Discoveries.
VALUE OF GOOD SEED
tcopyrlghr. 1905. by Frank C. carpenter.)

value OF all the gold and silver now an
nuaIly mined in the United States 1T would
set our nation crazy and excite the world
Such a gold field has been discovered with
in the past four years, in the great corn
belt Of the United States Our corn crop
now amounts IN round numbers to more
than two billion bushels and is annually
worth in the neighborhood of 81 900. Jcoo 800
All the gold and silver mined in this coua-
try amounts to but little more thaa S10o.-
600. coo. so that the corn crop is worth ten
times as much.
Now. the discoveries of the last four
wears have shown that this great crop can
be doubled, without adding one acre to the
land cultivated or 1 cent to the cost OF cuI-
tivation. This means in time a possible In
crease of S1,o00,OG0,0Go annually in our
national wealth, which. on per cent
basis. means the addition of $4,000 0O00y0
to our national assets.
Corn is King.
These are big figures, but corn is
mighty 1t is Uncle Sans biggest crop
Ii is the greatest crop of the world, and
we have the monopoly of it, How great
it is few people realize. The figures are
so vast ones mind cannot grasp them. In
1902 we raised more than 2,500,o00,00O
bushels of corn and in 1903 the product
was more than ZOO, 100000 bushels. Let
me put those figures into concrete shape.
Suppose all the corn raised last year
could be gathered into one pile and loaded
on twO-hOrSe wagons. Let each wagon,
with its team and driver take up thirty
feet of roadway and start the procession
eastward, loading wagon after wagon, as
the corn crop moves on. Put the noses of
the horses a the tailboards of the wagons
in front, and how far away do you think
the first wagon would be when the last
wagon was loaded? Suppose them to start
a the Mississippi river, would it be down
in Ohio? No. In New York? No. Out in
the Atlantic? over in Europe? Away off
in Asia? IN the middle of the Pacific
ocean? No. 1t would be thousands upon
thousands of miles further on 1t would
reach not once, but twelve times around
the world, a distance of more than 3OO,-
900 miles. One years corn crop at forty
bushels of shelled corn to the wagon would
make eighty-eigh continuous lines of
wagon loads from Boston to San Francisco
II you could bridge the skies and start it
toward the moon it would make a solid
wagon train which would reach to that
dead planet and go on for 90 600 miles
beyond. II you could load it on cars in
5OO-bushel lots at forty feet to the car.
including platforms, and start them on
double track the two first cars would
nave gone from the Mississippi to New
l ork, across the Atlantic, across Europe
and almost across Asia before the last
two cars were loaded.
And this mighty crop can be doubled as
nave said before, without adding one
cent to the cost of production or one acre
10 the area now used. 1t not only can be
done but is being done. The discovery was
MADE about four years ago that the right
KIND of seed has everything to do with The
yleld OF The corn crop, that there is fine
blooded corn as there is fine blooded stock
ana that corn can be bred up like a high
strain OF Jersey cattle or a pedigreed trot-
ter.
Pioneer Corn Breeders.
1t was to give you the story of this move
ment that l called at the Agricultural De-
partment today and had a talk with Arch:
bald Dixon Shamel, who was one of the
originators of the discovery He is TODAY
scarcely more than a boy, but he is one of
the chief corn authorities of the United
States. L first asked him how he became in
tereSted in corn. He replied:
L was raised on farm and when T got
old enough my father gave me corn patch
TO cultivate for myself. 1 had to buy the
seed, do all the work, and | had all the
pfohts- Ny patch contained fourteen acres
ana, as L lived in a corn-growing region
l was ambitious to raise the best and
most corn. l then thought that the secret
OF success was in fertilization and cultiya-
tlon- l used plenty of barnyard manure,
kept the field well worked, and as a re-
suit my first crop amounted to 1 600 BUSH
els, or ia bushels to the acre which was
1ar above the yield of the rest of the farm
Ihat started me to studying the subject.
ana kept up my studies when / went to
the Illinois Agricultural College at Ur-
bana year or so later. There we had an
experimental corn patch and we tried every
way we could to increase the yield. One
means was by choosing good seed We
found that certain seed corn produced dom
BILE as many ears as other seed corn. and
by investigating where the corn came from
We found that the best was furnished by
Two farmers, one in Indiana and one in
Illinois. We wrote and asked as to how the
seed was produced, and found that each
man had for twenty-five years been select
ing his best seed for planting, judging the
same by the size, stalk and Weld The In
diana man was raising white corn and had
been breeding up that variety. The Illinois
man had been doing the same thing with
yellow, and his seed was such that it pro-
duced about seyenty-six bushels per acre
This led us to believe that corn couId he
greatly improved by the selection of seed
and by using the best specimens of the best
varieties TO breed from. We began to do
that at the Agricultural College in 1899 and
from that time on the movement has spread
until there are corn breeding associations in
all the great corn raising centers.''
Boy Corn Raisers.
DO you have trouble in getting the farm
ers to improve their seed?'
No" replied Mr.. Shamel when one
farmer Of a community has the right seed
his big crop is an objest lesson to all his
neighbors, and they are ready to follow his
example next year and do likewise The
matter has become important in the
west that the state fairs offer premiums for
the best corn. The states have special corn
exhibits at which from 1900 to 10000 sam
pies OF corn are shown. Schools of corn
Judging have been established throughout
Illinois and other states and I might say
that there are hundreds of thousands of
boys. each of whom has a little patch of
corn and who Is studying how to raise corn
Tor himself There were 5000 samples Of
corn sent by 5000 different boys to the St
Louis exposition to form a part of the ILL.,
nois corn exhibit there. The same thing ts
going on in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Mig
souri, and Ohio"
Where do the boys get their land on
which to raise this cornT'
1T Is given them by their fathers. In
stead Of letting each boy have a COW,
a horse or something OF that kind, the
father gives his son a few acres to put into
corn to raise premium, seed. All the boyy Of
farming community will be so treated
and at a certain time of the year each wifi
bring ten OF the best ears OF his crop TO
the corn-1udgtpg association. It Will be
there passed upon by the corn judges and
the best corn will receive premiums OF
money or machinery. There will often be
three premiums for each class Of corn
shown. ranging from SIS 10 t5 or less The
boys thus learn what constitutes good corn,
the principal Kinds of corn. and how IL