Corn Improvement

[Contents:] Corn, The Most Typical American Plant, Yields Rich Results in Breeding and Genetics --- Importance of Corn as the Backbone of American Agriculture --- The Origin of Corn Remains a Mystery and a Subject of Speculation (Corn Today Is Much Like That Centuries Old – Most Commercial Varieties Have Come from Open-Pollinated Plants) --- The Story of Corn Breeding, from Mass Selection to Modern Hybridizing (Early Breeders Were Artists in the Use of Mass Selection – Ear-to-Row Selection Widely Used but Disappointing – Early Workers Laid Foundations for Modern Breeding – The Work of Shull and East Marks a New Era in Corn Breeding - Several Methods Used to Control Pollination – Corn Breeders Utilize Most Intensive Form of Inbreeding – Simplifying the Testing of Inbred Lines – Production of Hybrid Corn Seed Promises to Be a Large Industry – Yield Increases Up to 35 Percent Over Open-Pollinated Varieties) --- Genetics Points the Way for Future Development in Breeding (Hybrid Vigor Explained – Inheritance of 350 Genes Now Known in Corn – Conditions in Minute Cell Correlated with Breeding Behavior – New Methods for Locating Linkage Groups – Modifying Germ Plasm by Laboratory Methods) --- Some of the Botanical Relatives of the Corn Plant (Hybrids of Corn with Related Plants) --- New Concepts May Lead to Still Greater Changes in Corn Breeding --- Appendix (List of Corn Varieties Recommended in the Different States by Their Respective Experiment Stations – Location of Projects of Corn Improvement Based on Selection in Inbred Lines – Summary of the Performance of the Outstanding Inbred Lines Developed as a Result of the Inbreeding Programs – Corn Hybrids Developed by the Agricultural Experiment Stations and Distributed for Commercial Production).