Miscellaneous. 369 



have yet a part to play in the regeneration of the race which, by com- 

 parison, will dwarf into insignificance the services which steam and elec- 

 tricity have so far given. Even unconscious or half conscious plant breed- 

 ing has been one of the greatest forces in the elevation of the race. The 

 chemist, the mechanic have, so to speak, domesticated some of the forces 

 of nature, but the plant breeder is now learning to guide even the creative 

 forces into new and useful channels. This knowledge is a most priceless 

 legacy, making clear the way for some of the greatest benefits which man 

 has ever received from any source by the study of nature. 



A! general knowledge of the relations and afifinities of plants will not 

 be a sufficient equipment for the successful plant breeder. He must be 

 a skillful botanist and biologist, and, having a definite plan, must be 

 able to correctly estimate the action of the two fundamental forces — 

 inherent and external — which he would guide. 



The main object of crossing general species or varieties is to com- 

 bine various individual tendencies, thus producing a state of perturba- 

 tion or partial antagonism by which these tendencies are, in later genera- 

 tions, dissociated and recombined in new proportions, which give the 

 breeder a wider field for selection. But this opens a much more dif- 

 ficult one — the selection and fixing of the desired new types from the 

 mass of heterogeneous tendencies produced — for by crossing, bad traits, 

 as well as good, are always brought forth. The results now secured by 

 the breeder will be in proportion to the accuracy and intensity of selection 

 and the length of time they are applied. By these means the best of 

 fruits, grains, nuts and flowers are capable of still further improvement 

 in ways which, to the thoughtless, often seem unnecessary, irrelevant or 

 impossible. 



When we capture and domesticate the various plants, the life forces 

 are relieved from many of the hardships of an unprotected wild con- 

 dition, and have more leisure, so to speak, or, in other words, more surplus 

 force to be guided by the hand of man under the new environments into 

 all the useful and beautiful new forms which are constantly appearing 

 under cultivation, crossing and selection. Some plants are very much 

 more pliable than others, as the breeder soon learns. Plants having 

 numerous representatives in various parts of the earth generally possess 

 diis adaptability in a nuich higher degree than the monotypic species, for, 

 having been subjected to great variations of soil, climate and other in- 

 fluences, their continued existence has been secured only by the inherited 

 habits which adaptation demanded ; while the monotypic species, not being 

 able to fit themselves for their surroundings without a too radically ex- 

 pensive change, have only continued to exist under certain special con- 



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