68 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



March, 1914. 



The Goal of Modern Vegetable Growing 



L. A. Waitzinger, B.S 



THE growing of vegetables is recog- 

 nized as increasing in importance 

 year by year. By the use of vege- 

 tables we get the highest yield of human 

 food from the soil, not entirely from the 

 nutriment they contain, but mainly from 

 the quality they possess of rendering 

 more digestible the proteins and carbo- 

 hydrates of other constituents of our 

 food. The rapid growth of our cities 

 and towns, which are mostly without big 

 gardens, makes truck farming very pro- 

 fitable with good paying crops. 



The providing of the vegetable grower 

 with seeds is surrounded by many diflfi- 

 culties — witness the recently issued vol- 

 ume for 1913 of the Canadian Seed 

 Growers' Association. One of the reme- 

 dies for the improving of these conditions 

 is the selection of seed. Of course the 

 breeding of seeds for the improvement 

 of crops is a very intricate and expensive 

 work, e.g., the quantity of seed produced 

 in relation to the area is often very small, 

 this in part causes the expense. Again, 

 foreign competition, climatic and tech- 

 nical difficulties, not to mention the great 

 labor problem, make the vegetable seed 

 raisers path one of many tribulations. 



Seeds to produce improved crops can 

 be raised in different ways. One of these 

 is by mass selection, which means the 

 selecting of the best plants and fruits 

 from a crop and saving them for seed. 

 The seed from these best plants are mix- 

 ed and sown and the same process goes 

 on from year to year. This method is 

 defective inasmuch as a plant may be su- 

 perior to its neighbors but only because 

 it had specially good conditions of soil, 

 light, water or protection, not because it 

 has an inherited superiority. 



INDIVIDUAL SKLE-CTION 



Individual selection is the selecting of 

 single plants, saving the seed therefrom 

 and planting the progeny under condi- 

 tions which gives each plant the same 

 advantages. The seed from the best 

 plants is then saved and kept separate. 

 The process goes on as long as the inves- 

 tigator likes. In mass selection you can- 

 not guarantee that you have picked' out 

 the best, you only think so. In individ- 

 ual selection you are in a position to be 

 sure. You can apply accurate tests to 

 prove it. One is a hit or a miss; the 

 other gets a bull's eye every time. 



These methods are generally used in 

 animal breeding. Ordinarily a sheep 

 farmer will let his ram run with a num- 

 ber of ewes. The resulting lambs may 

 be likened to the plants selected in the 

 mass. When the same farmer wishes to 

 produce something which shall do him 

 credit he picks out a specially good ewe 

 and his best ram and breeds from them. 



A., Echo Place, Ont. 



The lamb or lambs may be likened to in- 

 dividual selection in plants in this case. 

 The parentage is known and when the 

 samie thing goes on for generations the 

 final results are infinitely superior to 

 those obtained by the first method. When 

 a farmer wishes to test his herd of cows 

 for milk production he treats all exactly 

 alike, gives them the same water, food 

 and shelter. The product from each is 

 noted separately and after deducting the 

 expense of production, he soon finds 

 which cows are profitable. This is in- 

 dividual selection for milk — similar to 

 what should be done in plant life. If the 

 farmer fed some of his cows well, housed 

 them well, and ill-treated others, after- 

 wards testing the results he would or' 

 could only guess which was best. He 

 would not be sure. This is similar to 

 mass selection in plants. People should 

 get firmly fixed in their minds that plants 

 are living organisms, as responsive to 

 treatment as animals, as amendable to 

 improvement under certain conditions. 

 The same lots of heredity rule in the 

 vegetable and animal kingdoms. 



SIMPLIFYING THE WORK 



In order that the important work of 

 breeding plants "for improved seed pro- 

 duction may be encouraged, the question 

 of simplifying the work should be con- 

 sidered. This can be materially helped 

 by the reduction in the number of varie- 

 ties of each kind of vegetable. It is 

 far better that the breeder and grower 

 should devote their energies to the in- 

 dividual improvement of the present old 

 varieties rather than be perpetually cross- 

 ing for new varieties. With what a 

 flourish of trumpets is a new variety in- 

 troduced ; what a plethora of adjectives 

 are used to describe it and in a few years 

 it is as dead as Queen Anne. It is bet- 

 ter that improvement should take place 

 along scientific lines. 



What is recommended is that certain 

 districts should grow only one or at mo.st 

 two varieties of the kind which can be 

 grown successfully in the district. Then 

 the breeders can proceed with their work 

 knowing that their efforts can be con- 

 trolled. Varieties of proved merit should 

 be taken in hand and improved and one 

 name given to each variety. This is 

 another point which should be consider- 

 ed by those anxious to simplify matters. 

 We often find that many names are ap- 

 plied to the one variety. Instead of 

 breeders and growers frittering away 

 their time on hundreds of different varie- 

 ties, the differences only discoverable un- 

 der a microscope (and often not then) 

 they should come together and breed one 

 good variety to a state of excellence. 

 Two advantages would accrue by a dis- 



trict devoting its attention to only one 

 variety. First from the commercial point 

 of view the crops would command higher 

 prices, because by the formation of small 

 associations transit charges would be re- 

 duced to a minimum. The district would 

 become identified with the particular kind 

 of vegetable specialized in. Instances of 

 how this system has revolutionized num- 

 erous districts could be cited. 



It would benefit such a district to grow 

 its own seeds for two or three years, by 

 the methods of individual selection men- 

 tioned Ijefore. One or more men support- 

 ed by the association, should be in charge 

 of the .breeding of the stock seed, and 

 after the neighborhood generally had a 

 pure line of a certain vegetable, new seed 

 from another pure line could then be in- 

 troduced and in some cases could be used 

 for crossing purposes. By having the 

 district restricted to one variety a great- 

 er chance of obtaining a pure line in a 

 short time is present. 



The difficulties of a pure line breed- 

 er of any vegetable are very evident in a 

 district where many varieties of one kind 

 are grown. Cross fertilization when it 

 takes place without knowledge is work of 

 no value. 



But the difficulties in the way of hav- 

 ing specially trained breeders in each 

 district would perhaps be too great to 

 overcome. It would be a good thing to 

 have breeding stations established in a 

 few well-chosen centres supported by the 

 government if private enterprise was un- 

 able to cope with the problem. These 

 stations would be in charge of men scien- 

 tificaly equipped in every way, whose 

 duty it would be to raise pure bred stock 

 seed. These stock seeds could be sent to 

 their respective districts where the vege- 

 table growers could establish multiply- 

 ing plots. From the plots the seed could 

 be supplied for two or three years — not 

 for very much longer as deterioration 

 might sent in. Then fresh stock seed 

 could be procured from the station and 

 the district could proceed as described. 



The Glass Culture of Tomatoes 



R. H. Ellis, LeaminftoD, Ont. 



The tomato crop, an illustration of 

 which appears on the front cover of this 

 issue of The Canadian Horticulturist, 

 was benched last August, started fruit- 

 ing in October and finished in January. 

 The plants were trained to a singe stem. 

 We used twine and tied them to an over- 

 head wire for support. The plants were 

 set twenty by twenty-four inches. We 

 find that three pounds to the plant is a 

 very good average for this season of the 

 year. The growers who get less than 

 that are more plentiful than those get- 

 ting that, let alone more. The house 

 shown is one of our sixty-five by two 

 hundred foot houses. The photo was 



