THE AIMS AND METHODS OF THE AM. BREEDERS ASSN. 335 



THE AIMS AND METHODS OFTHE AMERICAN BREED- 

 ERS' ASSOCIATION. 



HON. W. M. HAYS, ASST. SEc'y OF AGRICULTURE, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



During the last five or ten years there has been a world-wide 

 movement to take up the problems relating to plant and animal im- 

 provement. This work has gone on in the laboratory of the scientist, 

 in the fields where the experiments are being made with field crops, 

 in the orchards, in the gardens, in the corn houses and on the live 

 stock farms, in the offices of live stock associations ; in the lecture 

 rooms, and in various meetings the question has continually arisen 

 in size and in grandeur of conception. In 1899 there was called in 

 London an international congress of plant hybridizers. This seems 

 to have given to the question a new world movement. Later, in 

 1902, there was a meeting of plant breeders called in the city of 

 New York. Last year at St. Louis a meeting of plant and animal 

 breeders, scientists and those interested in the practical improve- 

 ■ment of plants and animals was called. The economic scope of this 

 cjuestion seems to be taking something of this form in the minds 

 of the people who have investigated it : There are between four and 

 five billion dollars worth of plants and animals produced annually 

 in the United States, and those values can be increased from ten to 

 twent3''-five per cent with a reasonable expenditure of money and 

 with a reasonable expenditure of labor, and possibly we may in- 

 crease them much more than that. And scientific men have thought 

 it necessary that this great problem should be taken up and solved, 

 and solved in a general way. The meeting at St. Louis brought 

 together the plant and animal breeders, because it was seen that 

 the problem is a common one. The plant men were behind the ani- 

 mal men until the last five years. Now, however, the progress of 

 the plant breeders has been such that they have rather eclipsed 

 the achievements of the animal breeders, and the animal breeders 

 are now coming to the plant breeders for whatever that is new they 

 have to ofifer. This meeting at St. Louis was called for the purpose 

 of trying to get together the classes of plant breeders and animal 

 breeders, the practical men who make a business of growing plants 

 and animals, and those interested in the subject from an educational 

 and theoretical standpoint. The men that were present were most- 

 ly plant men. The meeting was called in connection with the Amer- 

 ican Association for the Advancement of Science, and the animal 

 breeders felt it was a question for scientists and felt they did not 

 belong there. The animal men cling to the experiments of Miles, 

 made thirty years ago ; they have not progressed much, and some 

 of them still have the idea there is not much to learn. 



