58 Breeding of Plants and Animals. 



appearance of berry and had no adequate facilities for 

 making milling and baking tests. Prof. Zavits did not 

 carry his breeding farther than finding throughout the 

 world those varieties which would yield the best, and 

 breeding them by a plan similar to the first plan men- 

 tioned in previous pages. It is not probable that this 

 method of selecting within the variety materially chang- 

 ed the quality of the grain, although he made a material 

 though modest increase in yield. The lack of milling 

 quality, no doubt, was in the varieties as originally in- 

 troduced from outside the Province rather than pro- 

 duced by his methods of selection. 



In England in like manner the scientists are seeking 

 to correct a similar fault in the winter wheats. They 

 write that the wheat breeders have injured the quality 

 of the wheat, and they are seeking the blood of Amer- 

 ican winter varieties which are of especially strong mil- 

 ling quality to hybridize with their large yielding 

 wheats. Wheat breeders in breeding for yield alone 

 have made a similar mistake to that made by breeders 

 of Short-horn cattle, who bred for beef and neglected 

 the dairy qualities. It is far easier to breed for a single 

 quality than for two or more, but it is a anarrower busi- 

 ness proposition. The wheat breeder wants the great- 

 est value per acre ; and to get that he must combine 

 good yield with good quality. The Short-horn breeder 

 also wants the greatest profits per animal or per herd, 

 and to secure that good beefing quality and good milk- 

 giving powers combined are best. In neither case can 

 we have the greatest excellence in either one quality, 

 but we can have the greatest general value for the gen- 

 eral fanner in the variety or family in which the two 

 qualities are combined. Since the quality of flour is 

 greatly jeopardized by some of the methods of breed- 

 ing wheat which are mentioned below these questions 

 are as vital to the wheat breeder as is the dual-purpose 

 problem to the breeder of cattle. Both problems will 

 lend themselves to scientific methods where statistical 

 facts take the place of vaporizing theory. But this 



