4 Breeding of Plants and Animals. 



plans roughly outlined will better serve permanently to 

 make new varieties, and even to improve old ones, 

 though this simple yet effective plan can best be em- 

 ployed by many farmers who wish to improve for sale 

 a variety which they believe is better than their neigh- 

 bors can secure elsewhere. Too much must not be 

 presumed from breeding under this plan, especially if 

 the yields of the resulting varieties are not really 

 tested by adequate field trials. Where an experiment 

 station follows this or any other method of breeding 

 the resulting varieties, where practicable, should be 

 tested near the parent variety or other standard varie- 

 ties which they are designed to replace. Milling, bak- 

 ing and other laboratory tests where radical changes 

 are made by breeding should also be made. These final 

 tests give figures of performing ability which may be 

 used as a powerful aid in selling the new variety. On 

 the other hand they may show that the new variety is 

 not as valuable as the old, in which case it should not 

 be distributed. I realize that this- contemplates a high 

 standard of excellence in wheat breeding and in seed 

 wheat growing, but I believe the American experiment 

 stations can and will lead in removing the seed business 

 from free seed packages on the part of the Government 

 and from selling by mean? of overdone word and pencil 

 pictures on the part of seed dealers. Statistical methods 

 in breeding and in selling are revolutionizing both plant 

 and animal breeding. 



Selecting the best heads of wheat wherever carefully 

 tried has given an increase in the crop. Though that 

 increase is on the average small it would seem quite 

 legitimate where tests of yield_can not be made to sell 

 seed thus grown from common varieties known to excel 

 even before the product of the new variety has been 

 grown sufficiently long to be tested. The present al- 

 ways seems even more important than the future ard 

 the improvements easily made, though they be very 

 modest, should be made at once available for the farm- 

 ers to use. The more pronounced improvements which 



