The Improvement of Crop Plants 



employed. They are 

 seed selection and plant 

 breeding. 



The earliest accurate 

 record we have of crops 

 being improved by selec- 

 tion of seed from the 

 best plants dates back 

 about one hundred 

 years. At that time a 

 botanist was visiting a 

 farmer who lived on the 

 island of Jersey in the 

 English Channel. The 

 botanist examined the 

 farmer's growing wheat 

 and found that many 

 slightly different varie- 

 ties were growing to- 

 gether in the same field. The farmer thought that he 

 had only one kind of wheat, but the botanist was able 

 to gather heads of twenty-three types from one field. 

 Some of these were better than others, and it occurred 

 to the farmer that if he could get rid of the poorer types 

 and raise only the best, instead of a mixture, his profits 

 would be greater. After the departure of his visitor, the 

 farmer planted the twenty-three heads of wheat in sepa- 

 rate plots. When these were grown, he saved the, seed 

 from the plots that seemed better than the others and 

 replanted it ; and so he continued to do year after year. 

 He soon had enough seed of the selected varieties for 



Journal of Heredity 



FIG. 68. The seedy and acrid little fruits 

 of the wild tomato (about one fourth 

 natural size). 



Plant 

 improve- 

 ment by 

 selection 



How a 

 farmer in 

 the Isle of 

 Jersey got 

 unmixed 

 varieties of 

 wheat 



