FINAL SELECTION 73 



So here he will have material for further 

 selection, and step by step he can progress in 

 successive seasons, often more rapidly than he 

 had dared to hope, toward the production of the 

 new variety at which he aims. 



Of course the time will presently come when 

 the amateur who thus begins with what may be 

 called the alphabet of plant experimentation, 

 will wish to advance to more complicated proj- 

 ects. He will wish to urge his plants along a 

 little more rapidly on the path of variation by 

 means of hybridization. 



But even here, as will be obvious on a mo- 

 ment's reflection, the experimenter is still dealing 

 with selection. For of course he will not make 

 his hybridizing tests at random, but will select 

 for his parent stock individuals that manifest in 

 pronounced degree the qualities that he wishes 

 to combine in his projected new race. 



So when we pass from the stage of simple 

 selection of "spontaneous" variations to the stage 

 of inducing variations along given lines by cross- 

 breeding, we are not abandoning selection but 

 are only dealing with selection in its more com- 

 plicated aspects. 



Rightly understood, then, it is not too much 

 to say that the entire task of the plant developer 

 is a matter of selection. First, he mav select 



