56 HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK. 



creator of values, and his every improved product, besides serving in its 

 own generation, becomes a new foundation for an added story to the 

 superstructure of economic or artistic production. 



Man's influence on plants and animals was Darwin's best clue to the 

 science of heredity. Hereafter scientific breeding promises to be one of our 

 best means for studying the nature of man, as well as of plants and animals. 

 Man, aided by social organization, is making tremendous strides in self- 

 development. The rapid strides found possible in improving species of 

 plants and animals begin to give hope that race development may become 

 feasible. The subject of breeding is apparently approaching a vastness, a 

 profundity and a widespread interest comparable with its possibilities. 



As minds flock about a new thought in invention, literature or art, and 

 perfect it, so scientists have long hovered, spellbound, about Darwin's theory 

 of natural evolution. That man can turn this idea to immense account has 

 heretofore received only a moiety of its due. Though the strenuous contest 

 which his theories precipitated caused him to lay the stress on the historical 

 rather than on the future economic phase of his brilliant work, as relates to 

 animals and plants, Darwin saw both facts as few of his followers have 

 appreciated. But there is developing a deeper appreciation of his work in 

 relation to the possible evolution of domesticated species. Biologists, as well 

 as practical breeders, are becoming interested in the possibilities of artificial 

 evolution, carried out scientifically and on a scale commensurate with its 

 necessities and importance. 



The most important business principle brought out during recent years 

 by Burbank and others is that by carefully growing and testing very large 

 numbers of plants improvements may be made which will far more than 

 pay the cost. Galton showed that there is only one remarkable man in sev- 

 eral thousands. Animal breeders have come to realize that there is only one 

 remarkably prepotent and effective sire in many; e. g.. Messenger, the father 

 of trotters, and Stoke Pogis, sire of a family of superior Jersey cows. Gideon, 

 Patton and other apple breeders find only one superior apple among very 

 many seedlings. Burbank throws away piles of berry vines as large as straw 

 stacks in the eflfort to find a few superior individual mother plants. 



The old time proposition that like begets like, that there are variations 

 in some individuals, with occasional cases of atavism, is neither distinct nor 

 definite as a rule of business action. Breed from the best is a good rule, but 

 its meaning is comparatively unimportant in variety and breed formation, un- 

 less changed to read : Breed from the very best from among very large 

 numbers. To utilize large numbers in an effort to secure the one or several 

 best as progenitors of a new race, system must be used in growing, measur- 

 ing and testing. Statistical methods, instruments of precision, and machinery, 

 also business and public organization, must be devised and utilized extensively, 

 especially with some of the most important wealth producing species. 



Selection requires nearly the whole labor and expense, in most cases 

 hybridizing only requiring a fraction of one per cent of the work of the 

 improver of plants and animals. Plants may be divided roughly as to methods 

 of breeding into three classes, according to their manner of propagation. The 



