Not only should there be a proper proportion between Length of Ear and Circumference, but an ear may be too long.  The usual length of ears is from eight to twelve inches, according to variety.

We have spoken of cob-relation before.  This cannot be determined accurately by your eye but must be done by weight; so shell the corn, weighing the ear first.  Now weigh the cob.  The difference is weight of corn.  Divide the weight of the corn by the weight of the ear.  This gives per cent. of corn.  For the exhibit the boys afterward used half their samples submitted and reckoned per cent. on this.  The proper percentage of corn to cob should be 86 or 87 per cent.  You can easily find out if you come up to standard.

Myron brought in some corn merely to show his mistake but of course did not submit any.

Jack, you will remember, did not test his corn and results showed this.  Out of his twelve samples there were two good ears.  The others showed many changes.  The poorly filled tips, irregular rows, and wide space between rows—­all these scored against Jack.  George’s corn was thrown out because black kernels were found here and there in with the others.

Albert’s and Jay’s Peep-o-day came out in fine shape.  But Peter’s Country Gentleman after all had the record.  Philip dropped out of the race because he went on a summer vacation.  So for a slight amount Peter took over Philip’s corn hills.

That fall the boys made very careful selection of seed corn.

“After all,” Myron said one night at club meeting, “although Peter’s corn was the only really fine specimen, I think some of the rest of us got fully as much out of the corn contest.”

“So do I,” added Jack; “and I, for one, shall test corn after this.”

“I think our corn was pretty good,” Albert went on in a half-injured way; “but we are going to beat that record next year.  We shall rotate our crop, planting our corn where the beans were this season.  That’s a thing fellows ought to know; that it’s a mighty good thing to rotate crops.”

“What’s that?” asked Philip.

“Rotating crops means not always planting the same crop on the same piece of land, but changing every two or three years.  It happens that beans are very good to plant before corn.  They do not take from the soil, The Chief says, what the corn needs.  So a piece of soil planted to beans gets in shape for corn planting another year.  It would not be well to plant corn on a certain piece of land more than two successive years.  Then something else should be planted on this land and the corn put somewhere else.”

“Good!” said The Chief.  “Some day we shall discuss rotation of crops more fully.  There are no end of topics for us to work over this next winter.”

XV

THE GIRLS’ SECRET WORK