PLANT BREEDING IN SWEDEN 119 



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was gained by repeated selections of an English Squarehead wheat, imported 

 about 1880, and which after severe winters was at last acclimated. By these 

 repeated selections the variety gained great uniformity and also remarkable win* 

 ter«hardiness without loosing its Squarehead type. While the imported Square* 

 head — and as is yet the case with this imported variety — was not even winter* 

 hardy enough for the most southern province of the country and consequently 

 did not give a greater average yield than the old, unimproved, native »land 

 wheat*, the Selected Squarehead greatly surpassed this latter sort not only in 

 Skane but also at a branch station at Ultuna in Middle Sweden. 



Professor Hj. Nilsson, who when he assumed the leadership as director of the 

 Association, was Lecturer of Botany at the University of Lund, had, when he 

 attended the University, studied systematic botany and had made himself known 

 as a distinguished florist. It was therefore quite natural that since he came to 

 Svalof greater attention was paid to the botanical and morphological characters 

 of the different parts of the plants, and the differences in these, by which they 

 are distinguished from one another. A closer examination of the morphological 

 differences and the observations, which then were made as to the constancy of the 

 progeny, depending upon whether it came from one or several plants, lead up to the 

 System of Pedigree, 1892. It was found that almost as regularly as the progeny which 

 came from a single plant was constant, just as often was the progeny, coming from 

 several plants, mixed and ununiform, even if these plants were alike in appearance. 



The System of Pedigree was certainly no new system, it having already been 

 used for several decades by other investigators and plant breeders. Peculiar for 

 Svalof, however, was the consistency and extension with which it was immedia* 

 tely adopted. The first direct result of this application was the discovering of 

 the great multiplicity of forms, which is typical for the old »land sorts» of cereals. 

 Already during the first years after the system had been adopted a very great 

 number of hereditarily (genotypically) different forms were separated from old na« 

 five and foreign sorts of all the crops, with which the work was carried on — 

 from common vetch (Vicia sativa) for instance several hundreds were gained. 



From deviations in the density of the heads of wheat and the characters of 

 the panicles of oats, from certain characters of the kernels of barley, the colour of 

 the blossoms and seeds in peas and vetches etc. systems were devised by which 

 the great multitude of types was arranged into difterent groups. And even if 

 these systems were more artificial than natural and even if they were of no great 

 use for the breeding work, still they to a great degree facilitated the handling 

 of the varieties and the forms. In order to gain such a desirable facility, genealo* 

 gical tables of the plants were also devised and exact stock books with notes 

 about the appearance of the different types in the field and about their chief 

 characters were kept. The keeping of stock books, however, was soon given up. 

 It was considered unnecessary, as the details about the types, which were register 

 red in them, were to be found almost as easily in the »field books», which 

 were annually kept and which are still kept about all the plots, cultivated during 

 the year, and in these books notes are made about all the types. Genealogical tables 

 are still made. A complete list of ancestors is always useful for instance in order 

 to get a summary of the numerous progenies of different generations of crossings. 



