DISCOVERY 



327 



Novelties True and False 



" Selection " has been a fertile means of improving 

 crop-plants. It consists in examining single plants in 

 a field, picking out any that appear to be different 

 from the familiar forms, and then making accurate 

 tests when a sufificient bulk of seed has been obtained. 

 The progenies of the original single plants should be 

 kept separate. Chinese cultivators of 3,000 years ago 

 had the germ of the modern selection idea. Some more 

 or less chance selections have proved of great merit. 

 In 1824 a herd-boy, Sandy Thomson, took home an oat- 

 plant he found growing on a heap of ditch mud. His 

 master multiplied the stock and the " Sandy " oat was 

 for many years unrivalled on poor soils in the North. 

 Chevallier barley, perhaps still the best-quality barley 

 and grown in every good barley country, sprang from 

 a progenitor found by a Suffolk vicar in a labourer's 

 garden. But with these stimulating examples a 

 warning must be given. Not infrequently, an un- 

 usually' fine plant of an old form is hailed as " new " 

 by the undiscriminating or unscrupulous. To this 

 we owe the plethora of synonymous names so familiar 

 in potatoes, cereals, cabbages, and most other crops. 

 The law protects both the name and the manufacture 

 of a flea-powder or a mouse-trap, but offers no obstacle 

 to the theft and renaming of any form of crop-plant. 

 Reputable seedsmen condemn the practice, but it 

 profits the dishonest, for a novelty — the latest pea or 

 potato — sells at a premium. An unwitting purchaser 

 often pays a high price for a form of wheat or other 

 plant which years ago, under its old name, he has tried 

 and rejected. Slender and obscure differences may 

 separate two forms, and proof of identity of the same 

 form under two or three names calls for great critical 

 ability. Recently, samples of different named forms 

 of potatoes were examined by the Potato Synonym 

 Committee of the National Institute of Agricultural 

 Botany. No less than 17 per cent., all bearing 

 different names, were proved to be the familiar form 

 " Up-to-date," and 5 per cent, more were " King 

 Edward." From this auspicious beginning it is hoped 

 that S3monym elimination may be extended to all 

 our crop-plants. 



Immediate benefit is unlikely now to accrue from 

 the introduction of foreign forms of cereals into 

 England. Unadapted to our climate, they rarely 

 thrive, but although the farmer could not profitably 

 grow them, they may yet have their value. " Little 

 Joss " wheat was bred by Professor Biften from a 

 Russian wheat of very low yielding capacity, but which 

 was immune to attacks of yellow rust. He crossed 

 it with Square Heads Master — a good cropper, but 

 susceptible to rust^and Little Joss represents a 

 combination of immunity to rust, high yielding 



capacity, and other valuable characteristics. As far 

 as his resources permit, the plant-breeder ransacks the 

 crops of the whole world for forms possessing features 

 of outstanding merit. 



The Importance of Hybrids 



In hybridisation lies the great hope of crop improve- 

 ment. By its means from existing forms new can be 

 derived, and a valuable character, even if associated 

 with others which are undesirable, can be transferred 

 from that association to a different one. The attractive 

 history of hybridisation begins with Joseph Gottleib 

 Kolreuter, who about 1750 first demonstrated that 

 seed-formation was a sexual process and effected the 

 first artificial hybridisation. His successors improved 

 the technique and amplified the field of work. To- 

 wards the end of the eighteenth century Thomas 

 Andrew Knight raised great numbers of new forms of 

 plants, including garden peas and the fruits. Two 

 brothers, John and Robert Garton, founders of the 

 present seed firm. Cartons, Ltd., commencing in 

 rSgo, produced a great succession of new forms of 

 cereals. But the greatest of the pre-Mendelian plant- 

 breeders was William Farrer. To benefit his health 

 he went to Australia after going down from Clare 

 College, Cambridge, and originally as an amateur, 

 devoted himself to wheat-breeding. Most of his 

 predecessors optimistically clung to the belief that 

 from continual hybridisation, especially with widely 

 different parents, there must emerge some wonderfully 

 superior novelty. With an insight which gave him an 

 appreciation of one aspect of Mendel's then dormant 

 discovery, Farrer perceived that valuable forms could 

 be bred only from parents themselves possessing 

 specific desirable characters. Choosing his parents 

 from Europe, India, and America, he systematically 

 aggregated into new wheat forms the characters requi- 

 site for the diverse conditions of Australia. His great 

 services have their monument in the present wheat- 

 growing industry of the Commonwealth. 



The Secret of Successful Breeding 



Mendel's discovery, like Kolreuter's, opened a new 

 chapter of history and, since modern plant-breeding is 

 based upon it. it deserves our respectful consideration. 



A seed is formed from two small bodies called re- 

 productive cells or gametes. One of these, the male 

 gamete or pollen grain, is from the male organs of the 

 flower ; the other, the female gamete or ovule, is from 

 the female organs. A pollen grain, entering and 

 combining with an ovule, brings about the conversion 

 of the ovule to a seed. To hybridise or make a cross 

 between two parent plants, it is necessary to remove the 

 male parts of the flower of one of them and to place 

 upon the untouched female parts some pollen from the 



