Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/203

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SELECTION IN PLANT BREEDING
197

Fig. 2. Inherited Abnormalities appearing in Maize. All pollen from these plants and from their normal sister plants must be prevented from maturing.

which bear their ears high and stalks which bear them low, stalks with long and stalks with short ear shanks, stalks with different leaf markings and with notably different tendencies to produce suckers. Differences are everywhere present even in the ears, as is shown in the accompanying photograph (Fig. 1). A large number of these differences are simply fluctuations produced by the environment and are not inherited. The obscuration of heritable variations by the fluctuations and the mixed condition of the natural types makes it a difficult task to isolate the most productive types. Many variations of technique have been proposed