IMPROVEMENT OF STOCKS 341 



experiments they had conducted in the West Indies. These dis- 

 coveries were appreciatively reviewed in the Linnean Society's 

 Journal (1891) by the then Assistant Director of Kew, Mr. (now Sir) 

 Daniel Morris. Some few years later, Sir Daniel having been 

 appointed Imperial Commissioner of Agriculture in the West Indies, 

 turned his attention energetically to the endeavour to improve stock 

 through raising and perfecting the properties of seedling canes. 

 And from this position the subject was naturally advanced to that 

 of the benefits derivable by cross hybridisation of the forms found 

 to produce fertile stamens and pistils. As a consequence it might 

 be affirmed that the hybrids or crosses that now exist hardly date 

 further back than a decade or so, and their histories are, therefore, 

 fairly well known. It was observed that some flowering canes Pedigree 

 produced numerous fertile stamens but hardly any fertile pistils, 

 while others had many pistils but hardly any stamens. The direct 

 pollination of the pistils became thus an obvious method of obtaining 

 a large supply of seedlings, and the crossing of the merits of 

 different stocks thus naturally presented itself as an important 

 feature of all such experiments. It is accordingly customary 

 nowadays to read of the sale of ' pedigree canes.' 



If such magnificent results can be and have been attained in a 

 few years with a plant that flowers but rarely, and even still more 

 rarely produces fertile seeds, how very much more should it be 

 possible with cotton a plant that through the early maturity of its 

 stamens (as in Mendel's classic experiments with Pisum sativum), is 

 fully under control, and with delicate manipulation can be readily 

 and accurately fertilised in any desired direction. 



Obviously, therefore, a method of ascertaining expeditiously when Economy 

 hybridisation had been accomplished (or had previously existed) 

 would effect an infinite economy in the production of new forms. 

 The system that at present prevails with cotton planters (already 

 fully detailed) is to select desirable forms that have appeared 

 spontaneously. These are called ' seminal sports ' or simply ' sports ' 

 or ' climatic varieties ' and writers who use such terms often speak 

 with scorn of the possibility of improvement through direct and 

 definite fertilisation. A little more study might, however, reveal 

 the fact that the majority of such manifestations may be either 

 naturally formed hybrids or the progeny of hybrids recessive types 

 in some cases and that many of them might, if so desired, be 

 definitely produced, and even fixed in half the time usually spent in 



