:/4 Breeding Plants and Animals. 







dividuals. Let each minute stream have its own envir- 

 onment and run over a bed with varying heat, the flow- 

 ing mass absorbing new chemical compounds from its 

 substratum of characteristic soil. New qualities would 

 be added and others created by the modifications of the 

 old by the new, and some characteristic qualities would 

 be dropped. Now let us assume that two rivers have 

 been found, each coming from its own country. Let the 

 second river hold as complex a load of chemicals as the 

 first, yet different. Let it be divided up as are the blood 

 streams in individuals and give each of these a long 

 time to be influenced by its own local environment. Let 

 Nature cause two of these streams to flow together or 

 let man pick out two which especially meet his desires 

 or needs and run their waters together. 



When the blood lines of two species or widely dif- 

 fering varities are brought together by hybridizing their 

 individuals the dynamic forces, are in a wonderful fer- 

 ment. All characteristics from the parents cannot be- 

 come dominant in this one individual ; there is room 

 for only one correlated set which will act in a harmoni- 

 ous whole. There is high art in the correlating powers 

 of heredity, in its building up the individual. Some 

 characteristics must sink to the bottom and become 

 atavic. Where the same characteristics of size, color, 

 strength or mental habit occur in both parents the 

 progeny will usually have the same qualities dominat- 

 ing, but where one is tall and the other short, one light 

 and the other dark in color, one early-maturing and the 

 other late maturing, the conflict leaves dominant in the 

 progeny the characteristic of one parent and perchance 

 another characteristic from another parent. In one 

 case all of the characteristics of one parent may be 

 dominant in one progeny, while another of the progeny 

 may be a composite. The possible combinations of 

 dominants in a radical hybrid, as between Jerseys and 

 Short-horns, between macaroni wheat and bread wheat 



