Studifs on Crown Gam, or Plants 'in 



their transmission. In breeding for disease-resistance against rust, 

 this appeared to be now cstablislicd.'^ That year Bil'fen received 

 from the Royal Horticultural Society a gold medal for his wheat 

 variety resistant to rust. 



Several years before the Conference, the Englishman William 

 Bateson, the Canadian William Saunders, the Americans L. H. 

 Bailcv. W. J. Spillman. H. J. Webber, and other authorities on 

 hybridization and plant breeding, had begun to reinterpret the 

 literature and experimental knowledge of the subject in the light 

 of an improved science fraught with vast potentialities for agri- 

 cultural advancement. In fact, Bateson, in his address "^ as pre- 

 siding officer of the Conference, introduced the word, " Genetics," 

 to define the basis for a new science, that sphere of scholarly 

 research " devoted to the elucidation of the phenomena of heredity 

 and variation: in other words, to the physiology of Descent, with 

 implied bearing on the theoretical problems of the evolutionist 

 and the systematist, and application to the practical problems of 

 breeders, whether of animals or plants." 



Since their first conference in 1899, much of the " bewildering 

 complexit)'," he said, which characterized their early deliberations 

 had been dispelled, and the science now was destined " not merely 

 to add new regions to man's knowledge and power, but also to 

 absorb and modify profoundly large tracts of the older sciences." 

 Hybridization and plant breeding were no more to be " a specu- 

 lative pastime to be pursued without apparatus or technical equip- 

 ment in the hope that something would turn up," but " a developed 

 science," ^° based on order and system, a new craft with terminol- 

 ogy, tools, and other accoutrements of an exact science. Geneticists 

 would probe deeply into the fundamentals of plant and animal 

 life, study the mechanisms involved in breeding, and improve and 

 extend the practice. Results of the earlier and late research on 

 the DeVriesian mutation hypothesis were before the conference. 

 Its report ■" published a letter written by Gregor Mendel at Briinn 

 May 4, 1868, to Carl Niigeli in which he told of his change from 

 a " hitherto humble position as a teacher of experimental physics " 



'' Idem, 382. 



" The progress of genetic research. An inaugural address to the Third Conference 

 on Hybridization and Plant-Breeding, Report etc., op. cit., 91. 

 ^*Idem, 91. 

 ■" Idem, 89. 



