FIXING GOOD TRAITS 23 



against scant bearing, thorny brier against 

 smooth brier, black fruit against white fruit, and 

 so on down the list. 



It is only by constantly bearing these divergent 

 pairs of qualities in mind that any experimenter 

 can hope to advance toward the production of an 

 ideal fruit or flower or vine. And it has always 



been so. 



OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES 



But there can be no question that the new 

 terminology, as used by present-day biologists, 

 serves to give precision to the ideas of the plant 

 experimenter, and enables him to analyze the 

 results of his experiments in more precise terms 

 than have hitherto been available. 



It will be convenient, therefore, and probably 

 helpful to the reader, in making precise refer- 

 ence to some of the experiments in plant 

 breeding already detailed, with special reference 

 to the possibility of fixing the type of new races, 

 if we discuss the matter in the new terminology. 



It will at once appear that when a plant 

 developer attempts to fix a certain type, he 

 is fundamentally changing his point of view. 

 Hitherto he has been concerned to make plants 

 vary in order that he might seize on new forms 

 and use them as material for developing the 

 type at which he aims. And his success in 



