Crossville chronicle. [volume] (Crossville, Tenn.) 1894-current, 1915-09-01
ABOUT SEED CORN.
How to Grow II, Select 1t and Keep It
from the WeeviIs.

w. H. Barton writing to the Corr
Club Boys in the Progressive Farmer
gives some simple and useful advice or
the question of seed corn that may be
profitably read by many in this county
who no longer consider themselves
boys. His letter follows:
My Dear Boys:-~
You have doubtless made your last
application of fertilizer, and at the
last plowing of your corn sown peas in
the middles. Or some of you probably
planted velvet beans in the corn rows
wnen corn was about "a foot high or
more. These legumes grow rapidly
during July, August and September,
and when turned under will return a
large part of the nitrogen now being
used by your corn.
The breeding time for early corn
has passed, but 1t may interest you to
know that the tassels are the males.
The silks are the females. The small,
yellow dust particles are the beginnings
of the corn grains and when they fall
on the silks, each mother silk takes a
tiny, yellow dust baby back under the
shuck and puts 1T in an ovule (little
egg) and feeds 1t until it is a full
grown corn gram. If these dust par
ticles (called pollen) come from puny,
weak stalks which will make little or
nothing, of course the grains of the
ears which are produced will have a
tendency to make weak, barren stalks
when planted the next year
To avoid this, you should never allow
your corn silks t" breed to such weak
males. Just about the time these
weak stalks show the tips of tassels,
pull the tassles out. Ii you wait until
the pollen lyellow duts) begins to fall.
it will be TOO late. Even the weak
stalks will produce better Gf they
produce any when detasseled and
their silks allowed to breed to strong,
vigorous stalks. Thus your seed and
your yield will be improved
1t IS an old adage among lievstock
producers that feed is half the breed. F"
This is just as true of plants as of ami
mails. We have learned that if we have
soil fertility combined with soil ability,
that the feed bill is light and that
plants may be expected to do their
best. You know there is right and
a wrong way to do everything. No
Use to buy pure-bred hog if you ex-
oect to stint 1t at the feed trough. So |
With seed. Pure-bred seed will soon
tall you if your soil and cultural condi-
ions are not right, it matters not how
much selection and care you exercise.
You can select and breed a better
eed within few years than you can
'uy. Corn, like some animals, must
ecome accimated or accustomed to
ne section before it will do it's best,
nd if changed suddenly to different
onditIons it frequently reverts, "goes
o pieces or "goes back, as we often
ay, and Is disappointment, event
hough it cost US fancy prices and did
'ell where it was bred under different
Onditions from ours. Select and breed
our corn seed, therefore.
Don't pull fodder off any corn,
specially corn for seed. The fodder
eing both lungs and stomach, the
of fodder robs the corn both
Its breathing and it's food, and the
rains are light in proportion to the !
arllness of such stripping. Such s
rains are light and weak and cannot
roduce the strongest and most vigor-
IS stalks when planted. All you get
the fodder would go to the ear in
eight and food value, and you find '
lat you have pulled fodder merely \
n the "fun of it," Now, boys you
ay have every bit of that kind of fun. i
lease excuse me! I'll take mine IN
me other way. :
Well, we are agreed that to get the
,st seed or the highest yield, the fod-
II must not be pulled. The next step
to select your type of stalk; one
at is short, stocky, medium sized, a
ith short joints. and many broad, g
gorous leaves, and with one or more
RS OF good size, bUrne on the stalk
out waist high or below the middle
the stalk. The ears should be borne Z
just enough stem or shank to allow O
rn to mod" with the tips down. r
lis keeps out rain. The shuck should Il