CHAPTER IX. 



PROJECTED BREEDING EFFICIENCY 



Previous paragraphs have dealt with superior wheat 

 seeds, spikes which excel, and individual plants which 

 yield more value in grain than do their fellows. Bui 

 there is another and far more important measure of the 

 value of plants to be chosen as parents of varieties. 

 Some plants and animals are large, strong, hardy and 

 very prolific, but without the ability to transmit their 

 prolificacy and other qualities which combine to make 

 up ail-'round values. Because the individuality of the 

 plant or animal is visible, present before us, we are 

 wont to give undue weight to the value in pedigrees of 

 the show characteristics, or even to qualities of the 

 largest intrinsic merit shown in the individual, and to 

 undervalue the more subtle, yet far more valuable abil- 

 ity to project a high value into future generations. 

 Breeding power, "projected efficiency," of high gen- 

 eral value, is what should be sought. 



A man with twenty trotting-bred mares and with 

 a choice between a 2 : 10 stallion with a large number 

 of 2 : 30 colts and a 2: 30 stallion with a large number 

 of 2 : 10 colts would not waste a breath before choosing 

 for the sire the horse which had sired the fast trotters. 

 In wheat breeding we found after a few years that the 

 columns in our tabular score card telling; the yield of 

 mother plants were no longer even scanned. When we 

 compared the average yields of the progeny of a large 

 number of mother plants we instinctively neglected the 

 yields of the mother plants. We learned by extended 

 experience that the progeny with the best individuality 

 from each generation is not always the ; best breeded 

 and is sometimes a relatively poor breeder. We learned 

 that the true measure of the breeding value of the 



