Technical World Magazine

FIFTY -MILLTOXS A DAY
'
1
Prof. M. L. Bowman.
Ho prtached listed scfd cc
to 25,0)0 farmers this
past sprinK.
era.G^c man can test enouiii^h
seed corn in one day to plant
the average cornfield of 43
acres. Hence an income of
$236.50 a day for the work
of testing the seed corn.
Even in these days of $1
wheat and $1 1 hogs, such
per diem is not to be
despised.
Prof. Holden had good
reason to want to issue that
one order, "test your seed
corn," this spring. Never
had seed corn conditions
been so serious in the state
which leads in the production
of America's greatest
crop. A killing frost visited
the cornfields early last October.
Jack Frost got the seed corn before
Mr. Farmer, with the result that less
than one-fourth of the seed intended for
planting this spring was fit and would
germniate. Had this seed been planted
without testing it is a foregone conclusion
that instead of raising 300.000.000
bushels of corn this fall Iowa would
have trailed along with Georgia and
Kentucky and vielded onlv from 75.000.-
000 to 100.000.000 bushel's, a mere molehill
compared to its usual golden cereal
mountain. So when Prof. Holden
and his right-hand man. Prof. AI. L.
P)Owman. set about to save the corn situation
thev not onlv figured out how much
Iowa farmers could make
with a few days' work, but
how much they would lose if
the\' failed to do this work.
They had the farmer, both
going and coming.
An ear of corn is a little
thing, except where it
doesn't grow. It contains
about 1.000 kernels and each
kernel planted should produce
a stalk. Each stalk
should ])r