GENETICS AND BREEDING 165 



has, up to the time of writing, never been able to 

 obtain a yield per acre of more than 76 bushels. 1 



I have elsewhere discussed records of egg pro- 

 duction in poultry in this connection. From 1836 

 there is an authenic record of crested Polish fowls 

 producing an average of 175 eggs each per year. 

 This was long before the trap nest had been dis- 

 covered. 



Too much stress, of course, should not be laid 

 on such examples as these. They do not indicate 

 that there has been no advance made by the 

 breeder in the qualities of domesticated animals 

 and plants during the last century. The average 

 quality of live stock and of crop plants is con- 

 stantly improving, not only as a result of breeding 

 but also because of better and more widely dis- 

 seminated knowledge of how to provide the food 

 and environmental conditions best suited to 

 bring to full expression the potential hereditary 

 capabilities 2 of the individual. I think that such 

 records, however, do fairly indicate that in the 

 practice of the art of breeding there has been no 

 such marked fundamental advance in recent years 

 as there has been in the science of genetics. By 

 empirical methods man has been steadily im- 



1 In the season of 1914 this was exceeded. 



2 Consider in this connection the practices of the real expert in 

 making world's records for milk and butter fat production in the 

 seven- and thirty-day advanced registry tests of the Holstein-Friesian 

 breed. 



