SELECTING CORN AND COTTON SEED-PAGE 5 ( iiLaJL I I -I r I i f?, rii zl wlli W A :. Carolinas. Virginia, Georgia, and i $da, FOUNDED 1886, AT RALEIGH, N.cf Vol. XXIX. No. 35 SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 1914 $1 a Year; 5c. a Copy SELECTED SEED PAY PROFITS EXPERIMENTAL AND SEED SELECTION WORK WITH CORN. FARM OF D. R. C0KER, HARTSVILLE, S. C. THE importance of planting only the best seed should be too ob vious to warrant discussion. However, the presence of barren corn stalks in nearly every field and of cotton stalks almost the exact opposite of the type that has given the best yields, indicates that the subject of good seed is one to which Southern farmers as a rule give too little attention. We must get rid of the idea that "just any old thing," any kind of livestock, any sort of seed, will do, and stand only for the best of everything. Just as it is idle to expect to grow livestock successfully with only scrub breeding stock, so do we fall short of pro ducing the largest and most profitable crops of corn and cotton where only ordinary seed are planted. The truth of this statement is amply borne out by all experience and ex periment station evidence. It is not meant to imply that we should pay high prices for fancy-named seeds that come from a distance, for this is usually the very thing we should not do. It is a fairly well established law that seeds of almost every crop do best when planted in a section BE SURE TO READ- Paw Fighting the Boll Weevil With Live stock . . 3 Five Things Cotton Farmers Should Do 11 Going Off to School 8 Plant a Field of Rape Now 10 Some Good Things Said at the North ... Carolina Farmers' Convention 6 The Harvest Time . . . . . .10 The Interest Bug and the Farmer's Crop 11. What Can We Afford to Pay for Crimson Clover Seed? .... 10 possessing natural conditions most nearly like those under which the seed were produced. In other words, the variety and type of cotton that will probably give best results is the one that has been longest grown in a particular locality and which has consequently become ad justed to local soil and climatic conditions. The same is true of corn and nearly all other farm crops. Plainly then, the policy for us to pursue will be, first, to center on the particular type Of corn or cotton that has been long grown in our section and that has apparently on an average been the best yielder." Of course, in centering on such a type or variety, the State experiment station should be consulted and a careful study of their variety tests made. Then when the type is settled upon, every effort should be made not only to maintain the standard, but constantly to raise it. Now is the time to plan for making 1915 our best year the time for getting out of the "aver age" class and realizing the additional $500 a year that is for the ma) who applies up-to-date methods to his farm operations. Careful seed selection is one of the essentials that we can't afford to neglect.