FIXING GOOD TRAITS 17 



But to assemble these qualities in a single 

 flower required about fifteen years of persistent 

 effort, and the handling of probably not less than 

 half a million individual seedlings. 



Generation after generation the plants were 

 cross-pollenized and selected over and over, 

 always with an eye not merely to a single quality, 

 but to the ensemble of all these ten qualities. 



And always we were confronted with the diffi- 

 culty that in reaching out to bring in some new 

 quality, we were disturbing the balance of qual- 

 ities already attained, and endangering the entire 

 structure. 



When, for example, the final cross was made 

 with the Japanese daisy, to secure if possible the 

 element of whiteness shown preeminently by that 

 flower, and add it to our mosaic, we, of necessity, 

 brought in also from the Japanese parent, along 

 with the quality of whiteness, such undesired 

 qualities as crude, ungraceful stems and very 

 small flowers. 



It was necessary to select and interbreed, and 

 select again, for successive generations from 

 among a multitude of the progeny of this cross, 

 before a plant was finally secured that presented 

 the desirable combination of qualities, retaining 

 the whiteness of the Japanese parent, but reject- 

 ing its undesired characteristics of leaf and stem, 



