SEED 231 



crops through the agency of seed, that is, 

 by breeding. While many of the varieties 

 so produced are hardly an improvement upon 

 their predecessors, there is no doubt that 

 many notable successes have been scored, 

 and on the whole the character of our farm 

 crops, and, it may be added, of our farm 

 animals, has undergone great improvement 

 during the past fifty years. The improve- 

 ment of plants by breeding takes two lines, 

 improvement by selection, and improvement 

 by crossing or hybridization, and as a rule 

 both of these lines are followed in arriving 

 at the final product. In attempting to 

 improve plants by selection, one takes such 

 opportunities as present themselves of col- 

 lecting the seed of those individual plants 

 which show in a marked degree the qualities 

 that one desires to see in the progeny. By 

 collecting seed from a number of individuals 

 one does not obtain a pure strain, although 

 the crop in bulk may have desirable char- 

 acteristics. To obtain a pure foundation 

 stock one must start with the seed of a 

 single plant, sometimes even with a single 

 grain, and although this method of pro- 

 cedure is slower to furnish results, it is 

 probably more satisfactory in the end. Of 

 course, even where one selects seed from a 



