58 HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK. 



Varieties Multiplied Asexually. 



In species like the apple the opportunities of improvement by selection 

 within the variety, vv^ithout seed reproduction, are relatively slight, because 

 confined to bud selection; though even in buds the natural impulses of the 

 mixed blood, aided by environment, cause useful and valuable variations, ap- 

 parently differing in their values only in degree from variations arising di- 

 rectly from seed reproduction. Seeds w^hich are hybrids between known 

 varieties should generally be used where practicable. Here the selection is 

 carried out by simply growing immense numbers, digging out all unpromising 

 trees, fruiting the promising ones, and by making root or top and bud grafts, 

 thus extensively testing the very few best, and finally propagating only those 

 which prove so superior as to warrant their commercial use. If better 

 methods cannot be devised for securing to originators remuneration for their 

 work, the breeding of this class of crops should be taken in hand extensively 

 at public expense. In Minnesota something is being accomplished by the State 

 Horticultural Society. It has offered a premium of $1,000.00 for a choice 

 apple, with certain prescribed qualities. But that sum can pay for only one 

 variety, and even that liberal premium will not give enough stimulus of apple 

 breeding. The public cannot afford to longer refrain from investing much 

 larger sums in apple breeding. 



Varieties Multiplied by Self-Pollenation. 



Any reasonable expense may properly be used in the breeding of our 

 great staple crops, where hundreds of millions of dollars hang on the breed- 

 ing values of a comparatively small number of superior plants. Theory dic- 

 tates and practical experience has proven that the employment of a large 

 number of plants is an economical necessity in breeding such crops as wheat, 

 oats, barley, etc. The following brief statement of a plan for breeding wheat 

 is essentially that in operation at the Minnesota Experiment Station, but is 

 adapted to the conditions of starting anew in a State experiment station : 



A large number of chosen varieties, a hundred or more, are secured 

 from regions with conditions most like that for which the varieties are de- 

 sired. In a few years these are reduced to the ten, more or less, which are 

 productive of the largest value per acre. The breeding may be begun before 

 all these varieties have been given field trials, if one or more varieties are 

 already at hand which are useful, that they may be made more useful to the 

 State at the earliest moment. 



For convenience of statement, after testing three to five years, we will 

 assume to choose five superior varieties for foundation breeding stocks. At 

 every point where selection is practicable the best should be chosen. From 

 field plots of each of the five varieties superior spikes are chosen. These are 

 shelled and 10,000, more or less, superior kernels are selected from each 

 variety. Each of these is planted by itself in a bed with its fellows in 

 such manner that each plant may have the same opportunity as each other 

 plant. Beds four by forty-two feet, with two-foot alleys between the sides 

 and six-foot alleys between the blocks, at the ends of the plots, are made 

 level and the seed bed made fine and of very even texture. To insure good 

 mechanical conditions and an abundance of moisture in the spring, also free- 



