NATURAL ENVIRONMENT 57 



cause changes in the imported variety, and it may require sev- 

 eral years to determine its merits. 



Instead of scientific agriculture having "almost reached the 

 limit of its development, " it has just fairly begun to develop. 

 This statement is especially applicable to the careful selection 

 of seed. "In Germany, where the percentage of sugar in 

 sugar beets is high, they deem it necessary to adopt the follow- 

 ing plan to improve the standard. Ten thousand beets say, all 

 perfect, are selected from a field where the choicest strain was 

 sown and carefully tended. A small section is taken from each 

 beet and tested to determine the percentage of sugar it con- 

 tains. The hundred beets of the highest quality are selected 

 and planted the next season for seed. The seed from these, is, 

 of course, very valuable, representing hundreds of dollars 

 worth of work, and it is used simply for growing seed beets. 

 From the seed beets thus grown only one hundred of the best 

 are again selected as stock to grow seed beets from, while the 

 rest of the 10,000, though grown from the same strain of seed, 

 are considered only good enough for growing seed for the man 

 who raises sugar, and not sugar beet seed." Seed which is 

 good enough for growing beets for seed is considered much too 

 valuable to use in growing beets for sugar. The beet grower 

 has made more progress in this respect in one century than 

 the wheat grower has in many centuries. It should, neverthe- 

 less, be said that the improvement in beets was partly the un- 

 foreseen result of European legislation. By a peculiar tax, 

 whatever sugar above a certain per cent was extracted from 

 beets paid no tax, or a smaller rate. To increase profits by in- 

 creasing this excess proved such an additional stimulus to 

 improve the sugar content of beets that the legislators appar- 

 ently could not modify the laws fast enough to keep pace with 

 the advance. 2 



While the past importance of introducing new varieties is 

 conceded, it is said that "the time will soon arrive when there 

 will be no further varieties to introduce better than we already 

 have." Unquestionably, the breeding of wheat will have an in- 

 creasing importance. As wheats may be developed, so they 

 may deteriorate, on account of soil and climate, and in such 

 cases there must perhaps be a periodical importation of seed. 



'Proc. Tri-State Grain Grow. Ass'n, 1900, p. 170. 



2 Handworterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, 7:997-1009. 



