Lewis: Plant Breeding Problems 



469 



called practical professional breeder. 

 The aim of these men is to produce some 

 new plant by chance or otherwise. 

 Most of the fruits or horticultural 

 products that have been obtained so 

 far have come very largely by accident. 

 I refer to the work of the Lewelling 

 brothers, Hoskins, Logan, Burbank, 

 Father Schoener, and many others who 

 might be mentioned. I would in no 

 way belittle the work of these pioneers 

 in our field. They have contributed 

 some of the world's choicest fruits. To 

 Burbank we owe much; he has shown 

 us the possibility of obtaining great 

 variation in plants by change of environ- 

 ment, has taught us the value of work- 

 ing with large numbers and has demon- 

 strated a wonderful aptitude and ability 

 in segregating the valuable plants from 

 the hosts of worthless. 



One cannot help feeling, however, 

 how much better it would be if, in 

 connection with the origin of such 

 cherries as the Lambert and Bing, 

 something could be known in regard to 

 their parentage, and the tendency of 

 these parents to produce such fruit. 

 Such facts would make a contribution 

 to plant breeding well worth while, as 

 we would have laid down fundamental 

 foundation stones for future investiga- 

 tors to build on. 



WORK OF SCIENTISTS 



The second class of workers are our 

 experiment station workers, research 

 men, so to speak, who fall naturally 

 into several divisions. First, there are 

 those men who devote their time largely 

 to testing certain theories of evolution; 

 to working out certain laws of heredity ; 

 men who are attacking the fundamental 

 problems of genetics, those which deal 

 with the very principles of the science. 

 A goodly ntmiber of such men will be 

 found on the Pacific coast who will be 

 willing to devote their lives to this 

 work. 



Second, there are those men who are 

 dealing with problems of a somewhat 

 indirect nature, but having a close 

 relation to the fundamental problems of 

 genetics. I mention the pollination 

 studies, such as have been conducted at 

 Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station. 



Some of these studies have already been 

 published in four bulletins. 



The work on the cherry has been of 

 special interest to plant breeders, since 

 it has shown that in the Northwest, 

 at least, the possibility of using the 

 Napoleon (Royal Ann), the Lambert, 

 and the Bing is somewhat restricted, as 

 they are sterile, and are also inter- 

 sterile, so that wherever cherry seed- 

 lings are produced, they will not come 

 as the result of crosses of these three 

 varieties, but may come from the cross- 

 ing of these varieties with others of 

 perhaps not as great commercial value. 

 Then there is a splendid work that 

 Shamel is doing in southern California 

 on the bud variation studies of citrus. 



A third class consists of those workers 

 who are forced to take up some problem 

 having for its aim a definite commercial 

 need, but coupled with foundation 

 studies in genetics. I refer to the 

 work that Webber has done with the 

 citrus fruits, cotton, etc., to the work 

 with the pear that is being done at the 

 Southern Oregon Experiment Station 

 where over twenty species of Pyrus 

 have been collected, and where over 

 1,000 varieties of pears are being tested, 

 to note first, their resistance to the fire 

 blight, and secondly, to work out their 

 value as parents in producing immune 

 or resistant varieties of pears. 



Other work is being done at the 

 Oregon Agricultural Experiment Sta- 

 tion with apples, cherries, prunes, etc., 

 much along the same line as that which 

 is being done with the pears, but of 

 course with different aims. 



I have mentioned more the work of 

 the Oregon station, since I am more 

 familiar with the work of that station, 

 and not so familiar with the work under 

 way at the other stations on the Pacific 

 coast. Undoubtedly, however, they are 

 also taking up this work very exten- 

 sively. 



PROGRESS HITHERTO SLOW 



Our progress in the past has been 

 very slow; perhaps we can almost say 

 we have done little or nothing, prac- 

 tically no fundamental work in genetics 

 as far as plant breeding is concerned. 

 We have only touched the surface. 



