Nilsson: Plant-Breeding in Sweden 



283 



The annual subscriptions of members 

 give, on the average, $740 a year. The 

 agricultural associations have contrib- 

 uted about $4,460 a year, and even 

 more in recent years. Finally, the 

 government has, ever since 1890, granted 

 $4,200 a year and, since 1905, this 

 subsidy has increased to $11,200. At 

 present the yearly subsidy has been 

 raised to $21,500; this sum includes the 

 contributions of the agricultural associa- 

 tions, which will shortly be discontinued. 



Finally, receipts from the sale of new 

 creations — of which I will speak later — 

 give a profit which has increased 

 yearly. During the period 1901-1906 it 

 averaged $1,450 a year, afterwards it 

 increased to $4,400 a year, and at present 

 it exceeds $16,000. Thus, the budget 

 of the societv for 1913 is not less than 

 $30,000 and for 1914 $40,000. 



From the payments of life members — 

 about $10,000 in total — a fund has been 

 set aside for buildings, much increased 

 by donations from patrons of agriculture, 

 w^hich indicates the keen interest that 

 this patriotic enterprise has awakened. 

 The total of these donations amounts 

 so far to $77,000. 



Accordingly the society now has at 

 its disposal a large and well-equipped 

 establishment, comprising two connected 

 buildings serving as laboratories, a 

 house for preparatory work, with a 

 little farm and a dwelling-house; it 

 also owns 40 acres of land, of which 

 special cultures and seed-multiplication 

 plots occupy 25 acres. Despite this, it 

 has been found necessary to make most 

 of the cultural experiments on the wide 

 fields of the huge property adjoining, in 

 order to give the different cereals, 

 occupying in total about 30 acres a 

 year, their proper place in the rotation 

 of crops, which is found absolutely 

 necessary for a normal development. 



the development of methods. 



Considering that the work at Svalof 

 was started by farmers, and that it is 

 the first time an attempt was made to 

 interest theorising scientists in a question 

 so frankly practical, you will understand 

 that the program of work could not be 

 otherwise than vague and fluctuating, at 

 the commencement ; it is only as the result 



of experience that a suitable method 

 was by degrees found and adopted . 



It is, then, evident that the history of 

 this task ought to offer a pictiire of 

 successive improvements, of new series 

 of experiments, of changes and, finally, 

 of progress; it is the more instructive 

 because it has gone at least ten years 

 ahead of contemporary institutions with 

 similar purposes. 



The starting point of the work was 

 naturally the "methodical selection" 

 accepted and practiced universally at 

 that time, in direct accordance with the 

 selection theory of Darwin, which was 

 still recognized as the probable solution 

 of the problem of the formation of 

 species in nature. 



These ideas were set forth in a way 

 typical of the epoch by K. Riimker in 

 his "Getreidezuchtung" (Berlin, 1889), 

 which was looked upon, from 1890 to 

 the end of the century, as a classic 

 resume of experiences relative to the 

 question of improving agricultural 

 plants. 



It will be sufficient here to recall that 

 we believed a methodical selection, long 

 continued, of plants characterized by 

 a certain common quality or disposition 

 would lead to the creation of a new 

 variety which would be constant and 

 which would have exactly that quality 

 desired as a distinctive and hereditary 

 characteristic. The result, it was said, 

 would be just what was seen as the 

 result of natural selection. 



It was not until ten years later that a 

 profound criticism of these ideas was 

 made by Hugo De Vries in "Die Mu- 

 tationstheorie" (vol. I, Leipzig, 1901), 

 where he seriously questioned whether 

 the progress in plant improvement 

 which had been attained was really 

 obtained by the method supposed, the 

 insufficiency of which he pointed out 

 both on theoretical grounds and by 

 citing his own experiments. The new 

 method of operation, by which he pro- 

 posed to replace the ancient method 

 previously employed, had at that time 

 already been in use at Svalof for ten 

 years, as we were able to prove by the 

 hundreds of genuinely new varieties 

 which had resulted from its application. 

 But, because of the frankly practical 



