THE ASSOCIATION OF CHARACTERS 239 



children of the nurseries are seldom mistaken in their choice. 

 Hence, we may conclude that the character of the doubles 

 penetrates the whole plant and produces small changes in 

 all the organs, even at the very earliest periods of their 

 development. 



For my second illustration I choose Burbank's selection 

 of quinces. A thorough study of this genus has enabled 

 him to see relations between the qualities of the fruits and 

 the characters of the foHage. Thereby it has been possible 

 for him to judge of the value of new acquisitions or to com- 

 pare the different specimens of a hybrid culture, long before 

 the time of blooming. Thousands of young seedlings may 

 be estimated in this way, the unpromising ones being 

 thrown away before they have to be planted out, and by 

 this means, of course, much space and labor is saved. The 

 differences between the seedhngs are, some of them, so great 

 that they may be appreciated by other people too, but others 

 are so slight that they escape general observation. But in 

 the first case their relation to the qualities of the fruit is hid- 

 den from the eye of the ordinary horticulturist, and it is only 

 by means of a special knowledge of the plant, and an intui- 

 tive appreciation of its virtues that Burbank could make 

 these remarkable selections. 



IMy tliird example is taken from the selection of cereals 

 on which Nilsson, the director of the experiment station of 

 Svalof in Sweden, is working. The barley, as cultivated in 

 the central parts of Sweden for the purposes of the brewers, 

 was generally suffering from the weakness of the straw, 

 which caused it to lie down in unfavorable summers, thereby 

 often involving the loss of large parts of the harvest. After 

 many years of unsuccessful efforts to improve this barley 

 in order to give it stronger halms, Nilsson decided to solve 

 the question in quite another way. He gave up the selec- 

 tion of the ordinary sort, the so-called Chevalier barley, and 



