RECORDING EXPERIMENTS 35 



My "plan books" have been a constant aid to 

 memory and guide to further effort. 



My record books have set down in black and 

 white the unequivocal evidence of progress or 

 of failure to progress. Few salient facts as to 

 the precise parentage of important hybrids and 

 the exact methods by which variation has been 

 brought about have failed to find most explicit 

 record, notwithstanding the omission of multi- 

 tudes of details that to some observers might 

 have seemed worthy of transcription. 



And if I have adopted in the field short-cut 

 methods of recording selection, these have not 

 lacked precision and accuracy, notwithstanding 

 their time-saving character. 



In point of fact, all along the line I have 

 endeavored to strike a happy medium between 

 the waste of time that would result from the 

 keeping of unduly elaborate records and the 

 waste of effort that would necessarily result if 

 no records at all were kept. 



The reader who would clearly comprehend the 

 nature of the compromise must bear in mind that 

 I have, as a rule, had a practical object in view 

 in conducting my experiments. It is true, as 

 Professor Bailey has said, that I constantly make 

 experiments with plants for the mere love of the 

 work. It is true also that my tests include him- 



