584 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



what proportion of this hay was timothy, but the writer believes that 

 we may safely conclude that at least one third of the entire hay crop of 

 the country is timothy. If this is true, the timothy crop of the United 

 States in 1910 had a valuation of over $249,000,000. In the two years 

 during which tests have been made, the 17 new sorts gave an average 

 increased yield of slightly over 36| per cent, above ordinary timothy. 

 A 36f per cent, increase in the valuation of the timothy crop as above 

 estimated would give us over $90,000,000 as the estimated annual gain 

 in the value of the crop which would be obtained if new sorts ecjually 

 as good as these could be used throughout the country. 



The rapid development of the science and art of breeding places us 

 to-day in position to secure improvements much more rapidly than has 

 been done in the past. It would not be astonishing if from 25 to 50 

 years of careful, intelligent breeding would accomplish with a wild 

 plant what has required many centuries under the crude methods of 

 our ancestors. 



It may be asked why we should be in haste to take up the improve- 

 ment of our native plants. In answer to this it may be stated that pro- 

 found changes, such as we desire and must have, require time for their 

 accomplishment. The potato and the tomato did not reach their pres- 

 ent perfection at one bound. A number of intermediate stages or im- 

 provements were first necessary. The strawberry and the gooseberry 

 did not reach their present size by one mutation, but several intermedi- 

 ate sizes were first necessary. Improvements apparently come by sud- 

 den leaps or mutations, and each of these paves the way for further 

 development that might never be possi1)le without the first improve- 

 ment. 



In breeding, the time element is the limiting factor of importance. 

 No permanent improvement of value can be obtained in a day, and no 

 time should be lost in beginning, on a scale commensurate with its im- 

 portance, the improvement of our native plants of promise. We must 

 conserve time and fulfill our duty to the succeeding generations. Why 

 is it that such a small proportion of our lands are cultivated? Ac^ 

 cording to the 1900 census, of the 1,900,000,000 acres of land in con- 

 tinental United States only 838 millions of acres were in farms, and of 

 this area over 50.6 per cent, was unimproved land. The sterile sandy 

 lands, and the low, wet lands, the stony lands and the hill lands, the 

 mountain lands of high altitude and the barren lands of deserts lacking 

 water, and the like, all uncultivatable and largely worthless for crops 

 at present grown, make up far the larger part of our vast domain. 



Travel through the high, hilly and mountainous regions of ISTew 

 York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina 

 and Georgia, and you find vast areas covered mainly with a low growth 

 of young trees and bushes, the main forests having been removed. The 

 same is true of many extended areas in the central and western states. 



