THE NEW EARTH 



the decade, and possibly, out of them all, one 

 will be found better than the old. It is this 

 one which is so eagerly sought, for which no 

 sacrifice of time and patience is too great. All 

 through the years, the life-history of the wheat 

 is noted with the utmost care. Each wheat, 

 and its progeny, is kept separate from all 

 others. Every event in its life is recorded in a 

 specially prepared book. Its yield, figured out 

 with mathematical precision in acre measures, 

 its weight, its color, the character of the food 

 stored up in its brown kernel, the height of 

 the stalk, the depth of the root, the manner 

 in which it has withstood, or yielded to, the 

 attacks of disease, — all these points and others 

 must be recorded with infinite pains; at no 

 place may there be a missing link in its history. 

 Breeding and selecting go hand in hand in 

 the work. The selection consists in preserving 

 only the best, — it is a rigid system of exclu- 

 sion, by which the poorer wheats are constantly 

 eliminated. It begins with the kernels, only 

 those of the choicest types being preserved. 

 It continues all through the growing of the 

 wheat into the harvesting, so that at the end 

 of a given test the wheat comes forth a fine 



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