CHAPTER IX 



HOW PLANTS ARE IMPROVED 



OLD people nowadays remember the tomatoes of their 

 childhood as small, tasteless fruits, too full of seeds and 

 green partitions to be eaten. The splendid tomatoes 

 of to-day have all been made by improving these poor 

 sorts. 



How are plants improved? We all know that good 

 soil and good cultivation make better and larger fruit, 

 but this improvement is lost as soon as the soil gets 

 poor or the cultivation stops. In order to have real 

 improvement we must get plants that produce better 

 fruit without better soil or better cultivation. 



Sometimes we find such a plant in our gardens. 

 Growing in the same soil, side by side with other plants, 

 it yet produces larger or better-tasting fruit. The 

 first thing is to see whether it will come true to seed 

 (that is, whether its seed will give plants like the par- 

 ent). If so, we have a new variety and we give it a new 

 name and put it on the market. We do not know how 

 it came to be. We have not created it. We have 

 simply found it, and our only care is to keep it and 

 propagate it. We keep a sharp watch on its offspring 

 to see whether some new and better plant will not 



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