PRACTICAL PLANT-BREEDING. 493 
three to five years to mature from seed. Fifteen years of unbroken work 
on this, now my sole specialty, has also proved the value of my views in 
practice. In the progression of my system the first five years only is 
known to commerce, having been discarded by me ten years ago; the 
second series of five years is a little known commercially, and received the 
Pan-American Exposition Gold Medal and St. Louis World’s Fair Grand 
Prize ; while the third series of five years is all in my personal possession, 
and unknown outside my trial grounds. 
I mention the above to make my statement more clear, for the reason 
that while my Canadian and United States representatives use over one 
hundred acres in multiplying and maturing my introduced productions, the 
five acres of my own breeding and trial ground are ample for my personal 
supervision, in view of the yearly increased average of high quality 
developed under the system of breeding practised by me. This means 
that, in the daily work of selecting from thousands of seedlings blooming 
in series of yearly production, the object lesson is most apparent in 
passing from section to section, with their gradual but markedly increased 
ratio of high quality, and newer and more valuable types. 
It is therefore imperative that the breeder should specialise, that he 
should use every obtainable wild species of his specialty, and in using 
each for the purpose dictated by his judgment and experience thus control 
and render amenable to his direction the vital forces and chemical con- 
stituents of this foundation stock. By using all obtainable species he 
multiplies the possibilities for practical results and increased diversity in 
the material to be evolved from the product of future years, and yearly 
discarding species and early hybrids as they are superseded in the course 
of his operations. 
Wild species are only of value so far as they may supply some 
desirable quality for incorporation into a domestic type containing other 
good qualities, such as size, vigour, vitality, and adaptability. Illustrating 
from my specialty, the blotch of the small Gladiolus purpureo-auratus can 
be imparted to a six-foot domestic type, free from the objectionable cowled 
habit of this species; and the throat mottling of the weak-growing G. 
Saundersii can be transmitted to a race of strength and vigour, with 
the added influence of its wide, open flowers ; and so on indefinitely. 
That the foregoing can be done is good reason for not developing race 
hybrids, with the consequent loss of the most important quality of general 
adaptability to changed conditions. The natural development of wild 
species is usually accomplished by restricted conditions of habitat, an 
influence of ages impossible of neutralisation by a few seasons’ crossing. 
So highly do I appreciate this feature of adaptability that in bringing my 
productions to maturity I grow them on four kinds of soil—sandy, sandy 
loam, clay loam, and humus or vegetable deposit—and before use in breeding 
they are proved in this quality in order that it may be also transmitted 
in crossing. Breeding from wild species is therefore of little practical 
value, as the farther our removal from their many objectionable features 
the better, when by proper selection their best qualities can be controlled 
and applied according to our knowledge and discretion. 
As I have spoken lightly of the value of pedigree types from wild 
species, it is only fair that I should give good reasons for my objection. 
