PLANT BREEDING 31 



seed. But the past season, the tree in question abandoned its habit and pro- 

 duced a crop of white peaches instead of the typical ones, blood red to the seed. 

 It is impossible to explain the cause of these reversions, or "sports," as the 

 gardeners call them. But when we find these variations from the normal 

 type, we can frequently make them permanent by propagation. Many years 

 ago, at Kenansville, N. C., Rev. Mr. Sprunt found a shoot on a Safrano rose 

 bush in his garden, which made a flower of a lemon yellow color, whereas the 

 Safrano is a buff colored rose. The sporting shoot was used for cuttings, 

 and from this variation we have the Isabella Sprunt rose. Many other florist's 

 plants have originated in the same way. 



But in plants that are annually grown from the seed, it is necessary to 

 fix by selection through years, the hereditary habit of coming true to the 

 desired type. It is in this way that the races or strains of certain plants have 

 become established. Carelessness in the selection of seed is the main cause 

 of most of the degeneration of type%that bother the farmer. He gets a corn 

 or a wheat of a certain variety, which has been bred to its present state 

 through a long series of years, by selecting towards a well established ideal 

 plant in the mind of the grower. When he has brought it to a point of com- 

 parative perfection it is sent out, and at once men who have different ideals 

 or none, get hold of it, and the tendency to variation which all plants possess, 

 starts it off in various ways, and while the seed lists continue to give the name 

 of the variety the seed has often been bred away from the original type in to 

 a variety of forms. A neighbor of mine many years ago, sent North and got 

 seed of the King Phillip corn, a variety of a dark brownish yellow color, with 

 a small cob and broad, flat, flinty grains. His idea was to get an early ripen- 

 ing corn for late planting on the low lands near a river where the soil did not 

 dry out early. * Under his mode of selection the corn has assumed an entirely 

 different type, and the only point in which it now resembles the King Phillip 

 is its color, for the number of rows on the ear has doubled, and the corn is a 

 dent instead of a flint, and is now more similar to the Learning. He selected 

 simply for the largest ears, as is the common practice among the majority 

 of farmers. 



Since the Indian corn is more susceptible to improvement thaa most of 

 the crop plants grown by our farmers I will here give the method I have 

 heretofore advised in regard to the saving of seed corn. If the grower is in 

 the northern limit of the corn belt, he will have to pay attention to the earli- 

 ness of the variety he wishes to secure. In the South this item may be 

 entirely ignored, since we have plenty of time to mature any corn. I would 

 begin with the best variety attainable in the section where the corn is to be 

 grown, for it is far better to start with an acclimated corn than to get a 



