90 HOW TO IMPROVE PLANTS 



roots contain about eighteen per cent of sugar in their 

 juice (Figure 48, b). 



Consider the Plant in Selection. We learned from 

 Lesson 17 that it is wise to plant the largest seeds. It is 

 also wise to select our seeds, as far as possible, from the 

 plants that suit us best. The farmer should select his 

 Indian corn for seed from only those plants that have the 

 kind of ear and stalk that he would like to have in his 

 whole field the next year. The gardener should save 

 his tomato seeds, if at all, from only the fruits that suit 

 him best, that grow on the plants that suit him best. The 

 plant should be considered, as well as the fruit. 



Hill Selection of Seed Potatoes. The value of consid- 

 ering the parent plant as well as the seed is shown in the 

 hill selection of seed potatoes. A large potato may come 

 from a poor hill, in which it was the only good one out of 

 many potatoes. If planted, this large tuber is apt to 

 reproduce not its own qualities but those of the poor hill 

 from which it came. For this reason many successful 

 potato growers do not select their seed potatoes from the 

 bin, but take them, at digging time, from good hills. Thrifty- 

 appearing hills, each of which was grown from a single 

 seed piece, are dug by hand, and the potatoes of each hill are 

 placed in a separate pile. The desirable hills are those that 

 produced a large number of medium-sized potatoes. From 

 these standard hills the seed potatoes are selected. After 

 this method of selection has been carried on for a few years 

 nearly all of the hills will be up to the standard of the few 

 best hills at the beginning. 



To Raise the Best Crops. If the farmer is careful to 

 select his seeds from the best plants only, his crops will 



