14 PLANT BREEDING. 



the instinct to contest the race, t lie form of body which permits light 

 and free action, the textnre of every bone, fiber, and nerve, and the 

 teacliable nature which enables the trainer to educate the horse. A 

 combination of all these characteristics was given to this race of horses 

 by the parent horse. Many other running horses have been employed 

 in- efforts to i)roduce a competing strain of trotters. But the blood 

 of Messenger stands above them all. And his descendants, through 

 rigid selection extensively practiced, are gaining in trotting ability 

 from year to year. He was a chance discovery. With the element 

 of variation once in hand, the horsemen of America have gone on 

 improving and intensifying it and reducing the American trotters 

 to a uniformly fast-trotting race of animals. 



MINNES(JTA NO. 109 WHEAT. 



One of the varieties of wheat originated by the Minnesota experi- 

 ment station will serve as the third example. This wheat, mentioned 

 on a previous page, was originated from a single plant (No. 476, of 

 1892) in the following manner: Several of the best plants were chosen 

 from among 400 plants of Blue Stem, each growing separately, a foot 

 apart each way. Each of the selected plants yielded 500 or more 

 grains of wheat weighing 10 or more grams. The seeds from each 

 chosen plant were planted for a few years until sufficient seed was 

 obtained to plant a field plot. Then for several years each of the new 

 strains was grown in a field beside the parent variety from which the 

 400 original seeds were chosen. A few of tlie new strains proved 

 superior to the parent variety, but the one named Minnesota No. 1G9 

 stood out so preeminently superior that all others were discarded. 

 For a large area of Minnesota this wheat seems capable of yielding 

 at least 1 or 2 bushels per acre more grain than its parent variety, 

 which is the best kind commonly and ahnost universally found on 

 the farms in southern and central Minnesota. This variety in ten 

 years could be increased so as to almost displace the parent wheat. 

 The peculiar quality or power in the single germ which was the 

 parent of plant No. 476 in our field crop nursery in 1892 had a very 

 great value. Tlie system which was followed to find the germ of 

 greatest value is comparatively simple. The cost of finding this plant 

 and of developing a variety of wheat from it, including the cost of 

 forming and testing all the strains which failed to reach first place, 

 was probably not one-thousandth of the value of this new wheat. 

 The production of this and other similarly useful new varieties gives 

 courage to experimenters, and warrants the State in investing more 

 money in similar experimentation with wheat and other important 

 crops. 



The purpose of this pap6r is to show the importance of plant breed- 

 ing to the country and. to the farmers and gardeners, and to throw 

 out into clear light its important practical features. The great ques- 



