HYBEIDIZATION AND SELECTION. 37 



other features, common to the phenomena of mind and of heredity 

 have led some plant breeders to believe that the mind of man has a 

 direct relation to and influence over his work as a plant breeder, and 

 that some men have a greater power in changing plants than others. 

 When due credit is given to the great care, to the use of immense 

 numbers, to the acute observation in detecting new things, and to the 

 system used in developing, testing, and comparing many new types 

 by those who are most successful in producing wonderful and useful 

 forms, there is so little room for the special direct influence of the 

 mind of t.h(» plant breeder that it needs little consideration. 



BREEDING BY HYBRIDIZATION AND SELECTION. 



In breeding by selection alone the variations occurring naturally 

 or accidentally within the variety are depended upon. Man simply 

 selects the choicest. These are usually placed under such environ- 

 ment as will cause desired characteristics to develop best and to 

 stand out. In breed or variety formation through the agency of 

 hybridization, followed by selection, man plays almost a creative jjart. 

 Where there is no variation of such nature as desired, it is created 

 by bringing together two of the many forms which have varied from 

 some ancestral forms, yet not so far but that the}' will cross-fecundate. 

 The further they have departed from . ancestral characteristics and 

 formed diverse qualities, the more likely will their progeny ex- 

 hibit new characteristics made up by combining those which have 

 become so radically different in the two parents. In a group of men 

 conversing about a subject concerning which thej^ have all practically 

 the same knowledge few new ideas are given to each mind in the 

 group, and few new thoughts are created through suggestion to each 

 mind. They separate each with the same knowledge and beliefs as 

 before. But if these men begin conversation about a subject con- 

 cerning which they have different ideas and beliefs, each mind not 

 only receives new ideas, but the creative power of the mind develops 

 new thoughts, theories, or interrogatory notions, which may or may 

 not be rational. So, when two nearly related plants or animals are 

 crossed, variation is not so much excited, and the i^rogeny are very 

 similar to the parents. But when two plants widely different are 

 liybridized, the natural tendency to vary develops new combinations 

 or apparently creates characteristics, new in kind and degree, which 

 hardly seem to be the combined results of any two characteristics in 

 the parents. Since this comparison seems so useful in carrying to the 

 mind a conception of the nature of heredit)^ and variation, it may 

 properly be carried a step further. The human mind has been built 

 up step by step from the minds of semicivilized races of the past by 

 the association of ideas, resulting in the creation of the more complex 

 knowledge of the present. So the varieties of plants and animals are 

 being built up by the creative power of natural variation. Antl, as 



