i6c Breeding Plants and Animals. 



it. The sudden awakening of our nation to a world 

 relationship, a world leadership, has done away with 

 the old cry against a strong central Goverment. All 

 now look to Washington and want there the strong 

 hand mightily clad with power to deal with the exter- 

 ior and with any threatening power within that the 

 National influence may work out its full destiny. A 

 powerful central Government can not only wield a 

 powerful army, but it can take up large questions of 

 internal policy, policies for the future as well as for 

 the present. Under President Roosevelt, aided by 

 such strong men as Secretaries Wilson and Hay, and 

 Gifford Pinchot and others, a National forestry policy 

 is being actually inaugurated; the most stupendous 

 irrigation enterprise ever conceived is being put into 

 successful operation; the long-desired Panama canal 

 is about to be dug; but greatest of all are our diplo- 

 matic achievements. Our annual forestry products at 

 their highest point represent only $109,000,000 or 6 per 

 cent of our annual animal products, yet a few hundreds 

 of thousands of dollars spent annually in forest pro- 

 tection and improvements is not too much, it is modest. 

 The splendid relations being worked out between 

 the Department of Agriculture and some of the State 

 experiment stations in plant-breeding suggest a sim- 

 ilar arrangement in animal-breeding. The great temp- 

 tation in National affairs is to be paternal rather than 

 co-operative, as is shown by the distribution of free 

 seeds. The Government giving free seeds or free pure- 

 bred animals destroys the initiative of private business. 

 Breeders* of pedigreed animals should consider with 

 care any scheme for supplying free to producers of live 

 stock products, or even to growers of pedigreed stock, 

 animals to head their herds. Experiment with seeds 

 have demonstrated that the more proper function of 

 the Nation or State is to create new values, thoroughly 

 prove them, and then launch them at their full value 

 upon the commercial field for the production of pedi- 

 greed and highly accredited blood. Thus a new wheat, 



