THE OUTLOOK FOR PL.\NT BREEDING. 91 



doubtless give us leguminous potatoes and leguminous cereals which 

 wall be good substitutes for our present potatoes and cereals and 

 have the additional advantage of gathering their own nitrogen and 

 impro\'ing the soil instead of depleting it. 



Such are some of the great economic problems awaiting solution 

 by the breeders of the future, but it is in the general improvement 

 of all crops that one finds the most numerous problems. In no 

 crop or in no place have we apparently exhausted the field of im- 

 provement. 



For this section we want good keeping apples of better quality. 

 The Baldwin, an apple of inferior quality, has for over a century 

 held first place. Is it impossible to improve on the Baldwin? 

 In the northwestern part of the United States a more hardy apple is 

 greatly desired, and is being striven for with energy and persistence. 

 In the Gulf States an apple adapted to growth in warm climates 

 is a great desideratum and will doubtless in time be secured. 



During the nineteenth century our methods of breeding have 

 been developed and hundreds of valuable new sorts of various 

 plants have been perfected. What, then, are the most important 

 lines of development for the future ? 



The fact that we can improve plants depends upon the occurrence 

 of variations. No two plants are alike in all respects, and while 

 the difference between individuals of the same species or variety is 

 ordinarily slight, still there occasionally occurs a marked variation 

 or sport which may be of an entirely different and new type. 

 Breeders now recognize three tj'pes of variations: fluctuations, 

 mutations, and variations due to hybridization. Fluctuating 

 variations are the slight individual variations which are not con- 

 sidered to be heritable, but which are doubtless in some degree 

 transmitted. In the case of mutations or sports, as gardeners call 

 them, we have a variation of larger degree which in general repro- 

 duces its characters through the seed. A t^-pical illustration of 

 such a variation is found in the dwarf Cupid sweet pea, which was 

 suddenly produced from one of the ordinary tall sorts, and which 

 reproduced its character in its progeny. It is the discovery of 

 such striking variations or mutations that has given rise to the 

 great majority of our new varieties of cultivated plants. This is 

 particularly true in the cereals, vegetables, and all plants regularly 



