INTRODUCTION 289 



breeders of agricultural crop plants. Three of these worked with grains 

 and two with fruits. John Le Couteur, during the early part of the last 

 century, was raising what he supposed were pure and uniform varieties 

 of wheat, when Professor La Gasca of the University of Madrid, after 

 examining one of his fields, pointed out 23 distinct forms. This was the 

 beginning of Le Couleur's collection of 150 varieties of wheat, some of 

 which were introduced to the trade. One of them, "Bellevue de Tala- 

 vera," is still known as a pure and uniform variety. De Vries points 

 out that Le Couteur simply assumed that the progeny of his selected 

 plants would be like the parents and experience justified the assumption. 

 Thus be became the first to discover the importance of selecting in- 

 dividual plants in the improvement of cereals. 



Patrick Shirreff was also celebrated about the middle of the century 

 as a breeder of cereals. His method differed from that of Le Couteur 

 only in that he searched for very exceptional plants as the starting points 

 of new varieties. During his lifetime he discovered seven new varieties, 

 which according to Darwin, were grown extensively in Great Britain, 

 but only four of them had permanent value. He also proceeded on the 

 assumption that his single selected plants would breed true and each did 

 so. According to de Vries, he considered the occasional appearance of a 

 distinctly superior plant as merely accidental. 



Frederic F. Hallet, like Le Couteur and Shirreff, practised the rigid 

 selection of individual plants in breeding wheat. Although he proceeded 

 on the theory that by choosing the best spike on a certain plant and the 

 best grain in the spike he would obtain corresponding improvement in 

 the variety, yet he did not rely on mere apparent superiority, but tested 

 each grain on each spike. He then selected the finest plant of all. He 

 began his work in 1857 and made important introductions during the 60's. 

 While Le Couteur and Shirreff assumed that the selection of a single 

 plant was sufficient and thenceforth gave their attention to multiplying 

 the new variety, Hallet practised continuous selection within his selected 

 strains. He obtained considerable increase in yield as a result of his 

 early selections but little or no increase due to continuous selection within 

 pure strains. The success of these three pioneer wheat breeders was 

 unquestionably due to the fact that they practised the isolation of pure 

 lines some of which were superior to ordinary varieties. 



Charles Mason Hovey was the "father of the American strawberry." 

 As early as 1830 Hovey "had a list of 30 strawberries of his own origina- 

 tion, all springing from the "Hovey," which, together with "Boston 

 Pine," had been introduced a few years earlier. Hovey crossed a 

 native American species with the imported "Pine" variety, which is 

 supposed to have sprung from the beach or sand strawberry of the Pacific 

 Coast some years after its introduction into Europe. Some of Hovey's 



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