PLANT IMPROVEMENTS NEEDED. loi 



in the improvement of our plants and animals. Their work 

 should be supported most liberally, that they may rapidly learn 

 the needed truths useful to those who create new economic and 

 artistic values. Of no less value is the work of men like Vil 

 morin, Burbank, Neilson and Garton, who produce new values 

 which give not only inspiration to breeders but which lead legis- 

 lative bodies, firms and individuals to invest the necessary sums 

 of money to reap the full possible profit represented by the hun- 

 dreds of millions mentioned above. If the faith of plant breeders 

 is truly placed — that every agricultural district would respond 

 to varieties especially bred for its conditions, — we have only 

 touched the fringe of the possibilities for creating wealth by 

 breeding plants. 



All the students of theory and all the practical creative 

 breeders, so far as I know, believe that in each species there is 

 one plant among very many which has peculiar breeding power, 

 peculiar projected efficiency, peculiar variety-forming values 

 along needed lines, and that the bulk of the everyday work of 

 breeding is in finding these "Shakespeares of the species." 



The work of creating still greater Shakespeares of the 

 species through hybridizing may prove to be the more important, 

 as it is the more interesting; but the bulk of the expense of our 

 needed Federal, State and private breeding establishments must 

 be in the work of "mingling art and statistical methods" in 

 ferreting out the occasional individuals with peculiar value, seg- 

 regating their "blood," and in giving them a chance to prove 

 themselves adapted to increasing production in broader or lesser 

 areas. 



The efforts of the American Breeders' Association through 

 several dozens of committees and sub-committees to secure team 

 work in the making of plans for breeding each species of plants 

 and animals is beginning to bear fruit. There is value in 

 friendly rivalry, and men who, like j\Ir. Williams in his state- 

 ment of methods for breeding corn, are securing tjie applause 

 of their fellows, are appreciating the recognition for public serv- 

 ice well done. The making and the execution of specific plans 

 for breeding each species so that it will better serve in its present 

 habitat, and will be adapted to habitats which it cannot now quite 



