HOW FAR CAN PLANT 

 IMPROVEMENT GO? 



THE CROSSROADS WHERE FACT AND THEORY 

 SEEM TO PART 



WHEN I first began this work I was 

 taught that a combination between two 

 varieties of the same species was possible 

 that I might cross one plum with another 

 plum, for example, to get a new variety but 

 that the species marked the definite boundary 

 within which I must work. The science of that 

 day was firm in its belief that a seed-bearing, 

 fixed, self -reproductive cross between plants of 

 different species was beyond the pale of possi- 

 bility. 



A little later on, when I succeeded in com- 

 bining the plum with the apricot, and produced, 

 thereby, a new fruit whose parents were of 

 undeniably different species, the law. or rule, was 

 moved up a peg; and I was told that while it 

 might be possible to effect combinations between 

 different species, yet that must be the limit of 



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