X 



QUANTITY 



In this chapter we come to that part of the work which 

 is perhaps the most important — at any rate, from the 

 economic standpoint. Yet we can deal with it only 

 tentatively and suggestively, for the effects of the 

 factors operating are usually so difficult to identify 

 that it is next to impossible to connect any one factor 

 with any one character, or, rather, since we are dealing 

 with quantity, with any one measurable result. This 

 chapter therefore may not be considered strictly Men- 

 delian unless in so far as it points to results which are 

 certainly produced by factors working in one or other 

 of the Mendelian ways but not yet identified in detail. 

 The most inspiring work so far is Professor Nilsson- 

 Ehle's, to understand which it is necessary to under- 

 stand the circumstances under which it was begun. 

 From 1840 Sweden had been a grain-exporting country, 

 but about 1870 the effects of oversea competition 

 began to be felt and the remuneration for the grain ex- 

 ported to decline. In 1886, seeing that the Swedish 

 farmer's position would be bettered if he grew higher 

 yielding varieties, Herr Birger Welinder and a few 

 neighbours near Svalof established the Swedish Seed 

 Association whose purpose was to discover the best 

 varieties of grain for Southern Sweden. Believing that 

 the varieties they had been growing had declined in 



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