PLANT BREEDING 29 



I mention this to show that the making of an improved variety of any plant 

 that is reproduced from seed is not a sudden thing, but must be the result of 

 long and patient effort. But it is an effort that any observant farmer can 

 make for himself, and he can thereby increase the value of his crops to a very 

 marked extent. There is no magic about it, but only the patient working 

 towards an ideal well formed in mind to which we wish to attain. 



But in all plant breeding and improvement we must work for the char- 

 acter of the whole plant and not for a single feature. In the colder sections 

 of our country plant breeders who have undertaken the improvement of the 

 Indian corn have been compelled to take earliness of ripening into account, 

 and hence have developed a character that is not essential to the farmer in 

 the more southern sections. In the South farmers have for generations been 

 breeding corn simply for the biggest ear. They get enormous ears, but by 

 taking no account of the habit of the -plant, they have developed a tall, long- 

 legged corn that bears but a single ear and requires a greater distance in plant- 

 ing, and hence makes a small product per acre. Southern improvers of the 

 corn plant should work for a more dwarf and sturdy habit, and greater 

 prolificacy. In other words, they should work for the character of plant they 

 want without regard to whether it is a late ripening sort or not, since they 

 have time enough to ripen any. But the Northern improver must take also 

 the quality of early ripening in addition to the character of the plant 

 and its prolificacy. Breed for a plant suited to your needs and not for one 

 character of the plant alone. But it is not the corn plant alone that may be 

 improved by selection. All our cereal grains, our cotton, tobacco and all 

 other plants that are reproduced from seed, will yield to the same course of 

 treatment and may be immeasurably improved. But to keep these improved 

 forms to their standard the selection must be carried on the same way it has 

 been done. A farmer gets an improved variety of corn, which has been 

 selected on a certain line. He finds it really an improved variety. But he 

 goes at once to work selecting seed out of the crib as he has always done, with- 

 out reference to the character of the plant that bore the ear, and soon he 

 finds that the corn has changed its character and is no longer like the corn he 

 got, and he concludes that the improved sorts soon run out. But it is simply 

 because he has bred it on a different line from that by which it was originally 

 developed. He has worked simply for a big ear while the introducer worked 

 for the whole plant. 



Another point to be observed in the improvement of plants is to remove 

 them from disturbing influences around them. We may have corn which 

 shows very nearly the character which we wish to perpetuate, and it is sur- 

 rounded by stalks that have produced no ear, but have made an abundance of 



