480 ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE Off, Doc. 



Shalt thou return." There is nothing surprising, that the child 

 should resemble its ancestors, that fast horses should product fast 

 horses, or good wheat should produce good wheat. The surprise is, 

 not that organisms reproduce themselves, but rather that they should 

 ever vary as they so frequently do. 



Forces Afecting Crop Production : The individual plant or a par- 

 ticular crop is the result of two forces: First, heredity, and second, 

 environment, by which is meant climate, soil, fertilizers, cultivation, 

 and whatsoever tends to promote or prevent the plant or crop reach- 

 ing the highest development of which its hereditary power is capable. 

 Where there are several factors bringing about a given result, all 

 of which are necessary, it is impossible to say which is the most im- 

 portant. For example, it takes at least ten chemical elements to 

 grow plants, any one being absent the plant will not grow. To 

 raise a ton of hay requires about 1,000 pounds of carbon obtained 

 from the atmosphere, probably less than 20 pounds of iron obtained 

 from the soil. Can we say that carbon is more important than iron, 

 when without the iron there can be no green plant? Since both 

 seed and soil are necessary for ordinary crops, who shall say that 

 one is more importar, t than the other. Certainly both should be the 

 best possible obtainable. There is this distinction, however. The 

 increased yield of the crop by modification of environment, although 

 a necessary process to agriculture, can only be accomplished by an 

 expense more or less considerable. Heredity, on the other hand, is 

 a silent force which acts without expense. If a plant be discovered 

 that would produce, because of the force of inheritance, one grain of 

 maize more on each ear than at the present, it would be capable of 

 increasing the maize crop of the United States 5,000,000 bushels, 

 not next year alone, but for years to come. This is the significance 

 of improved seed. I quote from that wizard of the Santa Clara Val- 

 ley, Cal,, who has perhaps, produced more striking plant forms than 

 any other man living or dead. Many of these forms have been of 

 considerable economic importance. One of his latest, the spineless 

 cactus, has untold possibilities for the arid half of the United States, 



Says Luther Burbank, ''The vast possibilities of plant breeding 

 can hardly be estimated. It would not be difficult for one man to 

 breed a nev/ rye, wheat, barley, oats or rice which would produce 

 one grain more to each head, or a corn which would produce an ex- 

 tra kernel to each ear, another potato in each plant, or an apple, 

 plum, orange, or nut to each tree. What would be the result? In 

 five staples only in the United States alone the inexhaustible forces 

 of nature would produce annually without effort and without cost: 



5,200,000 extra bushels of corn. 

 15,000,000 extra bushels of wheat. 

 20,000,000 extra bushels of oats. 



1,500,000 extra bushels of barley. 

 21,000,000 extra bushels of potatoes. 



''But these vast possibilities are not alone for one year, or for 

 our own time or race, but are beneficient legacies for every man, 

 woman or child who shall ever inhabit the earth. And who can es- 

 timate the elevating and refining influences and moral A-alue of 

 flowers with all their graceful forms and bewitching shades and 



