THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CROP IMPROVEMENT. 1 



By Walter T. Swingle, Physiologist in Charge of Crop Physiology and Breeding 



Investigations. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Agriculture is rapidly changing from one of the simplest of the 

 arts to one of the most complex and difficult, and it is making larger 

 and larger demands for intelligent and capable activity on the part 

 of those engaged in it. It is my purpose to outline briefly some of 

 the essential principles underlying the more efficient agriculture that 

 is bound to come in the future. 



The fundamentals of agriculture are generally misunderstood 

 because of the hampering European traditions which still impede 

 our progress. It must be remembered that the agriculture of Europe 

 is the result of several thousand years of gradual improvement of 

 agricultural practices and an equally long period of conscious or 

 unconscious selection of crop plants carried on by the most intelli- 

 gent peasantry in the world. When we attempt, however, to trans- 

 fer this European agriculture to a new continent, with climatic and 

 soil conditions profoundly different from those of Europe, we are 

 often hindered rather than helped by the agricultural traditions 

 which were so deeply ingrained in our forefathers. 



Briefly, then, we must face the problem of agriculture in the New 

 World from a scientific point of view and on its own merits, utilizing 

 to the full, of course, any crops and practices of European origin 

 which can be adapted to our conditions. But it is becoming increas- 

 ingly obvious in a great many cases that the problem must be worked 

 out anew; and if we have to work out the problem of agriculture 

 in the twentieth century in the New World, we must do it on a basis 

 of scientific investigation. 



Let us consider, therefore, what the scientific principles underlying 

 crop production are. In a word, they are to secure crop plants 

 adapted to the local climatic and soil conditions and to educate com- 

 munities of farmers to produce those crops in the most efficient way. 



1 Issued Mar. 8, 1913. 



This paper was presented Feb. 7, 1913, as one of a series of lectures given before the 

 scientific staff of the Bureau of Plant Industry. 



3 

 [Cir. 116] 



