Breeding Plants and Animals. 



natural forms, must not be expected. That type of 

 experimenter is here needed who will lay out definite 

 problems, devise clearcut methods, change wisely as 

 his developing results warrant and expect to follow 

 the streams of heredity through the blood of many 

 generations of more or less mobile living forms or 

 types to reach desired theoretical results. Often the 

 side light suddenly appearing will have far wider val- 

 ue than the point to which the experiment was directed. 

 Thus, as stated on previous pages, in studying propor- 

 tion of wheat which is self-pollinated in nature, we 

 found a method of planting crops in the breeding nurs- 

 ery by machinery and were thus made able to work 

 out many things of theoretical and economic import- 

 ance not before found practical to study. 



But to return to the test book, to the philosophy of 

 breeding, as presented in our schools of agriculture. 

 Manly Miles formulated into a readable text the facts 

 and theories amassed by Darwin. J. H. Sanders, Ueo. 

 Curtis, Win. Warfiekl, Alvin H. Sanders, John A. 

 Craig and Thos. Shaw have each added substantially 

 to Miles' work, while L. H. Bailey has ably written on 

 plant breeding. But most of our basic theory as formu- 

 lated by Miles has not been greatly improved. 



Animal judging at the fairs and especially teaching 

 animal- judging at the shows have been much devel- 

 oped. While this feature is none too prominent it is 

 relatively too prominent because of the back- 

 wardness of the general theory of the business 

 of breed improvement and breed formation which 

 lias improved relatively little since Miles' book 

 was written. The work of Sanders, Goodwin and 

 others in word pictures of show animals, and of herds 

 offered for public sale is art of high order. This liter- 

 ature has been a potent force not only in giving prom- 

 inence to superior animals and to herds which excel, 

 but in greatly adding to the growth of expertness" in 

 studying animals with the eye. This able literature 

 has given great emphasis to the superior values of ped- 



