Swine. 129 



litter. The breeder followed the demand and bred 

 mainly the family which was popular, because that paid 

 him best and apparently suited his patrons. 



After a number of years his Poland-Chinas became 

 unpopular. Farmers got the notion that hogs from his 

 herd were not sufficiently prolific to be profitable. This 

 illustrates the fact that mere show qualities are not the 

 whole, but are far less than half compared with the 

 centgener or breeding power of the family or breed. 

 Our shows should emphasize this principle by putting 

 their largest prizes on the get of a sire and on the pro- 

 duct of a dam. In wheat-breeding we have come from 

 extending experience to pay little attention to the rela- 

 tive yields of parent plants, once we have a compari- 

 son of the average values of a hundred of the progeny 

 of each. Individual excellence is necessary both for 

 itself and as an index to breeding power, but real evi- 

 dence of breeding power is the final guide. Recently 

 Mr. Carlyle, the foreman of the plant-breeding nur- 

 sery in the Minnesota Experiment Station and myself 

 were selecting out of about 1,500 hybrid wheats those 

 which were most worthy of further trial. In selecting 

 175 of the best to continue in the tests we had for in- 

 spection the yields of the 1,500 mother plants, also the 

 average yields per plant of 100 of the progeny of eack 

 of the 1,500 mother plants. These mother plants were 

 in family groups and, as annually happens, when we 

 had nished we realized that our minds had instinc- 

 tively given very little weight to the yields of the 

 mother plants. The selection had been based almost 

 entirely upon the relative yields and grades of the graia 

 of the average progeny of the respective mother plants 

 and much weight had been attached to the fact that 

 certain families showed throughout a tendency to large 

 centgener yields and high quality of grain as breeders 

 become really scientific and expert artists the individu- 

 ality counts for less as compared with authentic evi- 

 dences of projected breeding efficiency. 



Some years ago the writer accompanied one of our 



