THE TEXTILE PLANTS 57 



That is to say, in this fourth year we shall have 

 a general crop of cotton plants all of which are 

 the descendants in the third filial generation of 

 the five plants or thereabouts selected in the 

 first year. 



And inasmuch as each successive year the five 

 or so best plants have been selected to start a new 

 series, the process of betterment will go on in- 

 definitely. The general crop in each successive 

 year will represent the progeny, not of the crop of 

 the preceding year, but of a third generation off- 

 shoot from the best plant of an earlier year. And 

 the crop of this year will of course supply the five 

 best plants to become the progenitors of the 

 general crop four years from now. 



And this, it will be obvious, is merely the 

 applying of the familiar rules of selection which 

 we have seen illustrated in the production of 

 specialized races of flowers and fruits, grains, 

 grasses, and vegetables of many types. The only 

 difference is the practical one that, in my experi- 

 ments, the inferior members of a fraternity are 

 usually destroyed when the best half dozen have 

 been selected for preservation, instead of being 

 preserved for cropping purposes. 



This modification obviously in nowise alters 

 the principle, but it is a practical change that is 

 clearly necessary to meet the needs of a cultivator 



