CHAPTER XXXII 

 PLANT BREEDING 



The History of Plant Breeding. — There is no 

 record of when men first began to attempt to improve 

 plants. Wherever the explorer goes among savage and 

 primitive peoples he finds them using plants of some sort 

 as food. He often finds some plants cultivated and they 

 are likely to be better than the wild ones. It seems 

 probable that conscious choice of better plants for seed 

 in many cases came soon after man realized the eflBciency 

 of cultivation. Certain it is, that most important crop 

 plants had not only been improved by the time at which 

 there is the earliest historical trace of them, but also that 

 this improvement had happened so long before, that it 

 is a matter of difficulty even to trace their original source. 

 For example, it is only a few years ago that wheat was 

 found growing in the natural wild state in Palestine, 

 although it had been in cultivation before the dawn of 

 history. 



During the last 200 years the attempts to breed better 

 plants have been numerous and sometimes strikingly 

 successful. It is, however, only within the last twenty- 

 five years that sufficient knowledge of the laws of hered- 

 ity has been available to put plant-breeding on a 

 scientific basis that enables it to proceed confidently and 

 rapidly toward its desired ends. Every civilized govern- 

 ment now employs numerous plant breeders. Scores 

 arc working in experiment stations, schools, and com- 

 mercial seed establishments. 



The Economic Importance of Plant Breeding. — In 

 the United States the National Government, through the 

 Department of Agriculture, and the various states through 



