THE OUTLOOK FOR PLANT BREEDLNG. 

 By Dr. Herbert J. Webber, Ithlica, N. Y. 



Delivered before the Society, February' 13, 1909. 



The nineteenth century has been characterized by Alfred Russell 

 Wallace, the great English biologist and contemporary of Darwin, 

 as a century of despoilation of the natural resources of the world. 

 In our greed for wealth, the soils, minerals, forests and all natural 

 resources, rightly the heritage of the children of the world for all 

 time, have been wantonly depleted without thought of the future 

 generations that must follow us. In the beginning of the twentieth 

 century it is meet that we should pause in our mad race for wealth 

 and thoughtfully consider if we are doing our duty by our children 

 and our children's children, who are to inherit the earth after we 

 are gone. It has been said that the greatest of all inventions which 

 we inherit is the alphabet, and I presume it may be as truthfully 

 claimed that the greatest of all heritages which have come down to us 

 from our ancestors are the cultivated plants developed by centuries 

 of unconscious selection for man's cultivation and use. As agri- 

 culture is the foundation of civilization, so the cultivated plants are 

 the foundation of agriculture, as plants must necessarily precede 

 animals to support them. 



The early history of our cultivated plants is shrouded in mystery. 

 The wild tj'pes from which they sprung being in many cases entirely 

 unknown, the modifications which have taken place being so pro- 

 found in many cases, as to preclude the recognition of the wild 

 prototypes if they are now living. Each century has inherited in- 

 creasingly better and better sorts from the preceding century. It 

 would seem to us today, that we have nearly reached the limit of 

 perfection, yet I am led to wonder, when I review the tremendous 

 possibilities opened to me by my past fifteen years of research in the 



