IMPROVEMENT OF STOCKS 329 



is associated with peculiarities in stem, leaf and flower so invariable 

 and constant as to defy separation into geographical races (see pp. 297, 

 306). There would seem but one satisfactory explanation applicable to 

 such cases : namely, that the plants have reverted to or preserved their 

 specific characteristics. 



To retain stock, therefore, at a required standard it becomes Seed 

 imperative to each year select from the field an individual plant, or a selection - 

 few individuals, that manifest the desired properties to the fullest 

 extent. The seeds thus procured have next year to be raised in a 

 plot of ground as distant and as much isolated as possible from the 

 general plantation. On their nearing maturity all the individuals 

 observed to manifest undesirable departures (from the accepted 

 standard) have to be uprooted. The remaining plants now afford 

 the seed for the following year's field cultivation. 



Year after year this selection, with a view to maintain a desired Seed 

 standard, may have to be continued, otherwise neither the standard 

 nor the uniformity essential to success can be attained. The 

 establishment of seed farms (see p. 175) in every country is now 

 recognised as an imperative condition of improvement. Even after 

 the expert hybridist has produced a desirable new stock it becomes 

 essential that selection at seed farms should be conducted so as to 

 ensure the adaptation of the new stock to each locality where its 

 cultivation may be contemplated. In India years ago I drew atten- 

 tion to the danger that threatened the cotton industry of that country 

 through the establishment of public steam gins in place of the private Effect of 

 hand gins of former times. The destruction of the special selection ^ 

 of centuries became a natural consequence, since the owners of the 

 steam gins would naturally return to the cultivators a supply of 

 mixed seed, if not of seed utterly unsuited to their fields. At the 

 first meeting of the Scientific Board of Advice in India I also 

 recommended the establishment of special seed farms as the most 

 pressing necessity of the cotton industry. 



But the process of simple (field) selection may be two-fold the Directions 

 discovery of forms capable of gradual development and the preserva- selection, 

 tion of others that suddenly appear in their perfect condition. Only 

 very rarely, however, do either of these originate new stocks not 

 directly traceable to hybrid influence. Every now and again we read, 

 however, of individual plants having suddenly appeared that were 

 observed to manifest some desirable new properties. The seeds of 

 such plants having been carefully preserved and the process of 



