EDITORIAL. 603 



the work of seedsmen and nurstM'vnien than of an experiment station. 

 Its ical purpose is the attainment of material ends, the findinij of 

 something- which is better, and it is not nndertaken with a vieAv to 

 learnin<r why certain resuhs f()lh)w, and whether they are chance 

 occnrrences or in accorchmce with a general law and may serve as 

 a safe basis of procedure. It is argued that we shall learn consid- 

 erable from such work incidentally, but it seems very doubtful 

 whether a man who is content to start out with a jjroject which avow- 

 edly aims only at skillful improvement in an empirical way wnll often 

 give himself nuuh concern with incidental occnrrences, whose study 

 ^^■ould delay him in his haste to attain a ]:)urely utilitarian end. In- 

 deed, it ma}' be questioned whether such work is often nndertaken in 

 the true scientific spirit. 



It is the man who couples with his plan for improvement the pnr- 

 pose to add something to our knowledge, at least to the extent of 

 knowing exactly how his end was attained, who will observe closeh* 

 those specimens which do not come up to his requirements as well as 

 those that do, will study the course of development carefully, and will 

 thus learn something of the limitations and the idiosyncrasies of the 

 supposed hnvs or rules. 



na])i)ily for the development of breeding as a science, a consid- 

 erable number of projects have been undertaken wdiicli deal primarily 

 or in part with the scientific aspects of the case. This is an encour- 

 aging tendency, and indicates something of a revolt from routine 

 improvement work. More of the breeding work which now seems 

 to l)e aimed at results without reference to the factors influencing 

 their origin migh': be made to contribute toward the Avorking out of 

 (crtain principles if planned with reference to that end, and it 

 seems extremely desirable that men who are engaged in this improve- 

 ment work should take this feature into account. 



Many have taken up breeding work without adequate preparation 

 for it, and see in it only the possibility of ''creating" something 

 useful. Surely if anything more than the uianipulative skill of the 

 counuercial l)ree(h"r is chiiuied for this work, if it is to be regarded 

 as ai)pi"opi-iate for a station exj)ert or an investigatoi', it should be 

 undertaken with a full knowledge of the status of our information, 

 so that advantage may be taken of the progress ali'eady made and 

 of the most advanced thought in that field. Only in this way is the 

 i)reeder e(|uii)|)e(l to observe intelligently and to correlate his obser- 

 vations in a way to be helj)ful. 



One of the first refpiisites is accurate observation and the keeping 

 of complete records. It is said that the only record of many new 

 varieties is in the meuiory of the originator. The mere weeding out 

 of those individuals which do not come up to the ideal standard, 

 without any record as to their pi-evalence or characteristics, makes 



