100 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



impossible plant, while the proper thing to do is to make the best out of 

 the opportunities at hand. 



In the second place, we should breed for one thing at a time. When a 

 man says, " I want a new bean," he will probably think of a certain size 

 of bean or shape of color, and he bends all his energies toward that one 

 thing, pa^'ing just sufficient attention to all the other things to keep them 

 up to the standard ; for, when he attempts to get better flavor and greater 

 size at the same time, he will probably fail in both. Darwin speaks of 

 breeders of pigeons trying to increase length of feathers and number of 

 feathers at the same time, and that they have failed, while the man start- 

 ing with the bird having the largest number of feathers will succeed, 

 by selecting those with the longest feathers. We must breed, therefore, 

 for one thing, at a time. 



Another important thing is this: The character of the entire plant is 

 more important than the character of any single specimen of fruit. Mr. 

 Livingston, who has improved our tomato until he has given us the Acme 

 and Perfection, says that he tried several years to produce larger to- 

 matoes by going into his patch and selecting the largest tomatoes for 

 seed. But, when finally he conceived the idea that he should select the 

 plant which produced the biggest tomatoes, then he obtained the results 

 he was after. There is sometimes a plant which produces small tomatoes 

 ordinarily, but will perhaps produce one unusually large one; but the 

 seed from the unusually large one may not produce others of great size. 

 So that the practice of selecting corn from the crib, wheat from the bin, 

 beans from the bag, is not the way to improve your crops. Bear in mind, 

 if you will, that the garden beans have been improved more rapidly than 

 the field beans, because the persons breeding them deal with individual 

 beans more. There they thresh all the beans and throw them into a bin 

 and select promiscuously. One reason why wheat and oats and rye and 

 corn have not been improved so much as garden vegetables, is owing 

 very largely to the same thing. They are simply selections from big ears 

 and plump seed, which may have come from plants which did not habit- 

 ually produce that character of product. 



Now, th(; whole object of the horticulturist should be to produce new 

 and better trees by change of soil and treatment and what not ; and after 

 that, attempt by careful selection, year by year, to breed up the varieties 

 he wants. 



I have always heard it said that crossing plants produces new varieties. 

 It is simply a means of producing a new starting point, and when this has 

 arisen, the process of selection should begin, and go forward so long as 

 you desire. The different varieties of tomato rarely last more than 

 eight or ten years (the old names remain), but we select, and the product 

 is unlike the original production. In 1890, I introduced a new variety 

 of tomato into commerce, and one year thereafter I got seeds from all the 

 seedsmen of ihis variety, and less than half of them had the proper char- 

 acteristics of that tomato. One man wanted a big plant, another early 

 fruit; and while I Introduced that plant in 1890, I do not believe it now 

 exists anywhere as I introduced it. When I compare it with the seeds of 

 which I had the original stock, T can not find the tomato which I intro- 

 daced. Some are better; they have been improved because people have 

 been selecting. The old Trophy, as introduced years ago, I do not believe 



