SOME POSSIBILITIES 



By C. L. Alien, Floral Park, Long Island, N. Y. 



Plant breeding is usually regarded as the act of reproduction, the per- 

 petuation of a given species, or type, that each plant acts as a machine acts 

 without volition, producing, because it was made to produce, wherever placed 

 in the order of creation, and that variation, in form or character, was the 

 result of external circumstances being more or less favorable to the develop- 

 ment of the machine as regards strength and recuperative energy, which, is in 

 a great measure, true, but not the whole truth, as we shall endeavor to show. 



To us, plant breeding has a much broader significance; it is education — 

 the giving of character to — the bringing of the plant up to the highest possi- 

 bilities of its creation, which are, to a great extent, bounded by the opportuni- 

 ties afforded it. 



To fully understand the plant's capabilities for development it will be 

 necessary to first study them in their native habitat ; to do that it will be 

 necessary to first take a glance at their geographical distribution, then note the 

 variation in form, substance and habit incident upon a changed condition of 

 climate, as well as in the character of soil when removed to distant localities. 



Buffon, in speaking of the geographical distribution of plants, says : "The 

 vegetation which covers the earth, and which is still more attached to it than 

 the animals which browse it, are even more interested than they in the nature 

 of climate." Each country, each changing degree of temperature, has its par- 

 ticular plants. We find at the foot of the Alps the plants of France and Italy; 

 at their summit we find the plants of the frozen North, and the same Northern 

 plants we find again at the summit of the mountains of Africa. Upon the 

 range of the hills wb'ch separates the Mogul Empire from the Kingdom of 

 Cashmere, we find on the southern slope many of the plants of the Indies, and 

 it is not without surprise that we find on the north flanks many of those of 

 Europe. It is also from the extremes of climate that we draw our drugs, 

 perfumes and poisons, and all the plants whose properties are in excess. 

 Temperate climates, on the contrary, only produce temperate things; the 

 mildest of herbs, the most wholesome of legumes, the most refreshing of fruits, 

 the quietest of animals, the most polished of men, are the heritage of the 

 mildest climates. 



In the natural distribution of plants, temperature was the principle that 

 governed selection ; it might be more proper to say that each was created for 

 the place it was to occupy, but with the power of adaptation to changed condi- 

 tions of soil and climate, to a considerable extent. 



