GOVERNMENT WORK FOR THE FARMER. 35 



tra we can produce it. If you want a certain type of Sumatra 

 with round leaves, or so that you can cut a certain number 

 of cigar wrappers from them, we can produce it. If you want 

 a round leaf we can get it. Think for a moment what it means 

 to the growers if we can do that, two more leaves to each 

 plant ! That, of course, largely increases the crop and, of 

 course, its value to the grower. That is just exactly what I 

 believe careful breeding will do. We have been breeding ani- 

 mals for years. We understand that principle as applied to 

 animals. Many of you are familiar with the gradual increase 

 of the trotting record. You know that a few years ago it 

 was thought that if a horse trotted in 2.16 it would be some- 

 thing marvelous, but we can, most of us, recollect the name of 

 several horses that have trotted in better time. It was thought 

 by some that the maximum had been reached, but breeders 

 will tell you that that time has not only been considerably 

 lowered, but that the record will be reduced slightly as the 

 result of still further careful selection and careful breeding. 

 Draft horses of different types are all the result of this ques- 

 tion of breeding. Now, while we have understood this princi- 

 ple as applied to animals more or less, we have been letting our 

 plants go. We have been considering that the plant came 

 under a different category, so to speak, but we are coming 

 to realize that we can breed them just the same as animals. 

 The corn growers of the west are organizing to produce 

 more and better corn. They say they can increase the yield 

 ten bushels per acre, and some growers have done it. Cotton 

 growers know from experience now that they can produce 

 a largely increased yield, and a better crop in all respects 

 as the result of seed selection. In the case of tobacco can 

 we not by that same course of selection produce a larger 

 yield? Every one of you men v/ho have seen a tobacco field 

 know that you have seen certain plants that will have from 

 two to three and four or five more leaves than any other plant 

 surrounding it. That is the plant for you to select your seed 

 from. Up to about two years ago the policy followed in 

 selecting tobacco plants for seed was simply to take a good 

 part of the field near the barn, or near the house, as the case 

 might be, where the plants were nice and thrifty, and leave 

 a couple of dozen plants for seed. Now that does not accom- 

 plish the purpose. That is simply taking any plant growing 



