RESULTS- OF BREEDING. 13 



European seed growers. This work, started by Vilmorin of France, 

 has made possible a large industry, profitable to the farmers and to 

 manufacturers, and has resulted in much cheaper sugar for the entire 

 world. Here, as in other lines of breeding, the principles and practice 

 are comparatively simple and easily mastered. Remove it from the 

 domain of abstruse reasoning, where some teachers of heredity place 

 it, and plant improvement becomes a practical business proposition, 

 an important affair of state. 



EXAMPLES OF RESULTS OF BREEDING. 



Three illustrations from plant breeding and from animal breeding, 

 in which the general principles are the same, will suffice to emphasize 

 the simpler side of the question of improving our useful plants : 



THE WEALTHY APPLE. 



The Wealthy apple, originated by Peter M. Gideon, of Minnesota, 

 will serve as the first illustration. Mr. Gideon planted many apple 

 seeds and watched the seedling trees develop. Most of the young 

 plants succumbed to the severe Minnesota winters. One plant stood 

 out prominenth'^ as being very hardy, and as the years passed it grew 

 to a fruitful tree. Its fruit was fine in appearance and of superior 

 quality. Mr. Gideon grafted some of the scions on other trees, and 

 others he grafted on seedling roots, making independent trees. True 

 to the nature of the apple tree, all these cuttings grew and bore fi-uit 

 like that of the seedling plant. Mr. Gideon gave trees to his horti- 

 cultural friends, and, being a nurseryman, sold many to his customers. 

 This variety of apple now stands as a testimonial to Mr. Gideon's 

 usefiilness. He since has added a number of other useful hardy 

 varieties to the apple list of the middle Northwest. The Wealthy 

 apple, being the first prominent i^roduct of the efforts at breeding 

 a hardy race of apples for the section of countrj^ mentioned, has a 

 peculiar intenist. As is often asserted, this apple, considered merely 

 as a fruit i)roduct, may be worth more than a million dollars, but its 

 value as an (jncoui-agement to apple breeding, and to plant breeding 

 genei-ally, is far greater. There are now being bred in Minnesota and 

 sui-rounding States very many new varieties of apples from hardy 

 l^arents. 



THE RACE HORSE, MESSENGER. 



Messenger, an imported English race horse, whi(*li became the lead- 

 ing i)r<)genitor of the American race of trotting horses, will serve as 

 the second illustration. In nearly if not quite all of the best indi- 

 viduals of this great breed there is some of the blood of this horse, 

 fanu)us, not for his individual performance, but because of his power 

 to transmit to so great a pi-ogeny the al)ility to win trotting races. 

 This ability to trot is made up of many correlated elements, such as 



