In the growing of corn the first matter for a boy or girl to consider is the selection of the seed. Corn should be selected carefully by the individual stalk; that is, choose ears from stalks bearing an ear or ears at, or a little below, the middle of the stalk. The stalk itself should be thick and free from suckers or any evidence of disease. The ear should be cylindrical. The kernels should be deep setting, uniform and compact. Then the cob should not be too large. Look at some samples. See how some ears have too large a cob, others too small, while still others show a right amount of cob. The butt and tip of the ear should be well filled out. Look for a perfect ear. The kernels are uniform in size, in even rows, with only a slight space between rows. See the tip and butt. Very little space is lost at the butt. You have seen ears where the butt was all space. There is still another sort of corn. It might be called mongrel. Any one can raise such corn. Good care shows in corn as good breeding does in boys and girls. One more point the boys were told to consider in selecting seed ears, that was the relation of the circumference of the ear to its length. An ear should have a fairly large circumference at the base and taper toward the tip. To estimate relation of circumference to length, which should be as three is to four, measure the ear one-third the distance from butt to tip. So if the ear is eight inches long the circumference should be about six inches. All the boys but Jack and Myron tested their seed corn to be sure of its vitality. Peter went a little further than the other boys. He not only tested for general vitality, but he tested for vitality among the ears he had selected as good seed ears. This he did in the following manner: He chose twenty-five ears, and used four kernels from each ear. First a soup plate was filled with sand. This was moistened by dropping a little water on the sand. Sand must not be too wet for this work. He partitioned off the sand-bed into rows with cardboard between them. On the cardboards was marked over each row of four kernels the number of the ear from which they came. The sand was moistened each day. Peter worked out from this the best ears for quick germination. The next point to be considered in corn culture is that of the soil. Soil for corn should be mellow and fine. If it has vegetable matter or humus in it, then its value as a corn-growing soil is increased. Fertilize well and plough, or if the plot is small, spade. You ought to have surely eight inches of good, mellow soil. In planting corn place five kernels in a hill. You will remember that a hill means a place. For corn which grows high make the hills four feet apart; while for the low growing varieties place three feet apart. Cover the early varieties with one inch of soil; the later varieties with one-half inch.