Theory and Practice in Breeding. 183 



rielics for which there grows up a permanent demand 

 which the trade may supply. 



Professor J. L. Budd of the Iowa Agricultural Col- 

 lege, * now emeritus professor of horticulture a num- 

 ber o<f whose students have become prominent plant 

 breeders and a pioneer breeder, performed many val- 

 uable experiments: His apple, plum, rose and other 

 work is bearing fruitage. But the most valuable thing 

 he did was to help to work out the relations of the pub- 

 lic improver of plants and the commercial seedsman 

 and nurseryman. By selling from the Iowa Experi- 

 ment Station Russian fruit trees at prices lower than 

 is possible for commercial growers to produce and sell 

 them lie demonstrated the futility of a State experi- 

 ment station ignoring the commercial agencies for dis- 

 tributing seeds and plants. The difficulties he met 

 from the opposition of* nurserymen who are pure bred 

 tree men as animal breeders are pure bred animal own- 

 ers, and the opposition the seedsmen have given the 

 United States Department of Agriculture in its free 

 seed distribution, have led certain experiment stations 

 in co-operation with the United States Government to 

 experiment on methods of distributing seeds on a com- 

 mercial basis. 



By starting out new varieties at a high price they 

 arc taken up by seed and plant growers and dealers 

 and pushed to the front. The margin of profits to the 

 seed-grower or dealer, established by the experiment 

 station starting the sale of new varieties at a relatively 

 high price, serves as the motive power in bringing the 

 new variety to the attention of every farmer in the 

 State. "Money talks'' and "makes the mare go." 

 Strong margins of profit set in motion the wheels of 

 commercial distribution, and keeps them greased until 

 a still better variety is found, yielding to the grower of 

 pure bred seeds, and the seed dealer, still better profits. 

 Prof. Budd damned his Russian apple trees with faint 



* Deceased. 



