LutRer RiarbanK's Cobless Corn
AS AN illustration of the extreme
results which can be produced
.by plant breeding, a photographic
reproduction of Luther Burbank's
cobless corn is shown above.
This kind of corn has no practical
value, for corn on the ear, as it now
grows, is the most economical and satis
factory method of producing the grain.
The cobless corn pictured here, how
ever, represents the form in which corn
grew ten thousand years ago.
As with all other plants and animals,
corn has been made better and better
by slow degrees year by year by the
natural processes of evolution. The corn
which we have today is bigger, better,
more economically grown, more useful
to the world, than any corn which has
preceded it.
In breeding corn backward and back
ward through the ages, Mr. Burbank's
purpose was to reveal the steps through
which corn has come to its present state
of perfection, with the hope that in these
steps there might be seen some possible
method of improvement some hint or
clew which would show him how to breed
it forward several generations.
As an example of what plant breeding
can accomplish, it is interesting to note
that it took less than eight years for Mr.
Burbank to produce this so-called cob
less corn less than eight years to carry
the plant ten thousand years backward in
its history.
By conducting this experiment, al
though the immediate result has no prac
tical value, Mr. Burbank was able to lay
bare the life evolution of corn, and to
learn what may be expected of the im
proved corn of the future.
The corn which the American Indians
originally found was not cobless corn
such as is shown here, but was in the
form of a wild grass now known as
Tcosinte.
This wild grass has a stalk and leaf
very much resembling present-day corn,
but the cars represent a half-way stage
between our present ears and the cobless
tassels shown here.
The cob of Tcosinte was about as big
around as a small lead pencil, perhaps
2Yi to 4 inches long- and containing
only two rows of kernels.
By a crude process of selection, the
Indians improved Tcosinte so that when
the first white settlers came they found
Maize,' or Indian Corn.
The process which the Indians used
was simplicity itself; it was true plant
breeding, although they, perhaps, were
unconscious of it.
It consisted in saving the largest and
best kernels for seed just as intelligent
corn growers do today; and as the In
dians did this, year after year, the ker
nels kept growing bigger and bigger, and
the cars got longer and longer, until
finally an ear with four rows of kernels
instead of two resulted to be followed
by those with six, eight, ten and more
rows.
Thus purely by elemental selection
saving the best for reproduction the
Indians developed Tcosinte from a 2li
incli, two-row ear to an 8-inch, fourteen
row car.
Corn, of all of our important crops,
lends itself most readily to improvement.
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