148 SYSTEMATIZED PLANT-BREEDING 



selecting it as the basis of a new variety. In such 

 work chance plays an important part, whilst the 

 aim of the breeder of to-day is to eliminate chance 

 and work definitely for the end in view. A brief 

 consideration of one of Mendel's experiments 

 will show how this can be effected. He crossed 

 together two varieties of garden peas, one having 

 round, yellow seeds, the other green and wrinkled 

 seeds. From the hybrids he ultimately obtained 

 four strains of peas ; one with round yellow seeds, 

 one with round green seeds, one with wrinkled 

 green and one with wrinkled yellow seeds. Two of 

 these resemble the original parents in their seed 

 characters, whilst two, namely those with round 

 green and those with wrinkled yellow seeds, are, 

 as far as this experiment is concerned, new forms. 

 These novelties arise from a reshuffling of the par- 

 ental characteristics, and further each character, 

 whether roundness or wrinkledness, yellowness or 

 greenness, appears in the new forms in the same 

 intensity as in the original parents. With these 

 facts before one it needed little imagination to 

 realise that if the results obtained by Mendel in 

 his cloister gardens with peas could be obtained 

 with wheat then definite plans could be made for 

 building up into one variety the useful character- 

 istics to be found amongst the almost innumerable 

 varieties in cultivation in various parts of the world. 

 Experiments were started therefore with the 

 idea of testing this possibility, and in the course 



