124 PLANT BREEDING IN SWEDEN 



Even several new sorts of potatoes have during the last years been put forth. 

 No new sorts of flax and rape can as yet be ready, but they are being success* 

 fully investigated. Svalof sorts of different kinds of field roots (mangels, Swedes, 

 turnips and carrots) cannot be said to be superior to all other sorts but they stand 

 on a level with the best ones. To be able to keep them on this high level, so 

 that they do not decline, requires continuous attention and constantly repeated 

 selections founded on a careful investigation of the chief characters of the mother 

 plant and of the progeny. Professor Hjalmar Nilsson has also during the last 

 years begun to work with mangels with the purpose of producing sorts com< 

 parable in uniformity and constancy with those of selfsfertilizers. This he intends 

 to achieve by a more strictly conducted pedigree selection and an artificial crossing 

 of sister individuals most like each other. 



As a contributive cause of the high average yield of Iron Wheat is also men* 

 tioned a high degree of resistance against yellow rust, a disease which some years 

 appears and ravages such sorts as are less resistant. Besides yellow rust a large 

 number of other dangerous plant diseases are already known, even such as are 

 caused by animal parasites, towards which different sorts of the same crop behave 

 very differently, a fact which has also been considered in the breeding work. The 

 producing of sorts resistant against diseases will surely be an effective remedy 

 against these plant diseases and thus a way of increasing the production. Another 

 important problem, upon the solution of which work has already been begun, is 

 the improvement of the kernel quality, especially in wheat in order to produce 

 sorts better suited for bread»baking — without mentioning all other future objects 

 of improvement. 



The field trials are an important part of the improvement work. They are 

 the beginning and end of all breeding, for without good trial plots one works as 

 a blindman and the whole improvement work floats in the air without the firm 

 basis which they form. It is namely only by comparative trials that the eventual 

 superiority of a new sort to already cultivated ones can with certainty be deter» 

 mined. But one thing is certain, the better the sorts get the less progress can be 

 expected. The trials, however, must also be more exact and more free from errors 

 in order to be able to determine accurately the differences that possibly exist 

 between the sorts. The improvement of the trial system, so that the trials become 

 as reliable as possible, is one of the most important objects of the plant breeding. 

 In Svalof the principle generally followed from the beginning has been to give 

 the sorts in the trial*plots no better conditions than they get in the general culti* 

 vation, apparantly a quite correct principle, the strict accomplishment of which 

 has been of great benefit for the work. 



The General Swedish Seed Company was founded 1891 along side of the 

 Swedish Seed Association, with the purpose of distributing the new sorts to the 

 farmers. It is exclusively a commercial company, with its main office at Svalof. 

 The Company, which alone has the right, receives the improved sorts from the 

 Association according to certain rules, sanctioned by the Government. They cuU 

 tivate them first on their own farms, which together cover a field area of about 

 1,500 hektares, and also by contracts on fields belonging to farmers all over the 

 country. Last year these cultures on fields belonging to private farmers together 



