194 STATE BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



With pereunial plants, the date in the register number refers to the 

 year that the plot was started from seed. Alfalfa 90800 is the eighth 

 roAv or plot in a series started in 1909. 



CENTGENER OR PROGENY. 



We make no distinction in meaning between the words centgener and 

 progeny. It may be any number of plants produced as the direct descent 

 of a single plant. These plots are planted in blocks or in rows as the 

 problem at hand seems best to be served. Selection plots in their first 

 year are called beds. This is the starting point from which individual 

 plants are selected to become mothers of centgeners or progenies. 



BASIS OF SELECTION. 



The individual plant is the basis upon which all the work is done. 

 In the case of small grains, the threshing machine has carried its gifts 

 around until the commercial variety means little. The testing out of 

 these mixtures can give only general ideas. When we have enough seed 

 of lots that have descended from single plants to plant our variety 

 series, we begin to get results. Those showing poor quality or yield are 

 discarded. If we have done nothing more than to pick out the highest 

 producing strain in one of these commercial varieties, the yield has 

 been increased several bushels. Hybridization is being left largely in 

 the background until the work of finding and testing of high produc- 

 ing strains indicates valuable material to work on. We know how a 

 small grain hybrid will break up often for generations, especially if the 

 crossing has been complex. In the case of cross-fertilized plants, we 

 deal with hybrids from the outset. 



In working with alfalfa and clover for the past four years, where 

 thousands of individual plants have been studied in tlie nurseries, the 

 writer has been convinced that the problem of producing pure strains 

 is a difficult one. If we had the original com from which man has selected 

 the corns of today, or if we had all the varieties of dent, sweet, pop, 

 flint, and pod corns not only mixed together but completely inter- 

 crossed, in the same field we would have a corn condition that would 

 approximate the ordinarj^ red clover of today. It is hoped that by 

 passing our strains through a long series of individual plant selections, 

 discarding the undesirable and unproductive of each generation, and 

 planting only the best, we can in time obtain a clover as uniform in char- 

 acter as some of the better varieties of corn today. 



NOTE BOOKS RECORD SHEETS. 



We use the standard letter size paper (814 by 11 inches) in all 

 our note books. The sheets have two holes near one side to fit the Welch 

 covers. This makes them adaptable to all the varying needs of the 

 often strenuous note-taking day. Portions of a number of records can 

 be taken to the field under one cover. Index fobs on extra sheets may 



