Theory and Practice in Breeding. 179 



time that a brief summary and general statement seem 

 necessary in closing. 



Breeders may be divided into three classes : pri- 

 vate breeders, firms and associations, and public enter- 

 prises. In most cases plant breeders require a long 

 time to wait until the newly-created varieties are ready 

 for distribution and bring results to the breeder ; and 

 with some species the necessary equipment and expert 

 services necessary for succesful breeding are quite be- 

 yond the ordinary individual farmer or horticulturist. 

 Every observing man who grows field, orchard, garden 

 or greenhouse crops, and under whose observation are 

 reviewed annually thousands and hundreds of thous- 

 ands of individual plants, has the chance of securing 

 occasional individuals of great value as foundation par- 

 ents from which to make new varieties. For example, 

 many of our varieties of apples come from rare trees 

 found growing in fence corners or other places where 

 seeds have been accidentally deposited. And in other 

 plants propagated by cuttings, where the entire variety 

 is all from a single seed, the plants being sexually mere 

 parts of the original plant, each on a separate set of 

 roots, growers have an exceptional opportunity to or- 

 iginate new varieties by finding a new plant and propa- 

 gating it. The character of the variety is here fixed in 

 the original plant. This class presents the simplest 

 kind of breeding, though in many species a long time 

 is necessary to fruit and test the varieties so as to select 

 only the blood of the very best mother varieties. The 

 planting of seeds, the hybridizing to create new vari- 

 ations, the long time of waiting, the selection of mother 

 plants, the testing of their progeny in one or more 

 localities, the necessary systematic efforts in the intro- 

 duction of valuable kinds, make of breeding even this 

 class of plants a complicated business. Even here large 

 firms, or better still governmental control or govern- 

 nental co-operation with associations, are necessary to 

 encourage this breeding on a sufficiently .large scale 



