FIXING GOOD TRAITS 



flower required about fifteen years of persistent 

 effort, and the handling of probably not less than 

 half a million individual seedlings. 



Generation after generation the plants were 

 cross-pollenized and selected over and over, always 

 with an eye not merely to a single quality, but to 

 the ensemble of qualities. 



And always we were confronted with the 

 difficulty that in reaching out to bring in some 

 new quality, we were disturbing the balance of 

 qualities already attained, and endangering the 

 entire structure. 



When, for example, the final cross was made 

 with the Japanese daisy, to secure if possible the 

 element of whiteness shown pre-eminently by that 

 flower, and add it to our mosaic, we, of necessity, 

 brought in also from the Japanese parent, along 

 with the quality of whiteness, such undesired 

 qualities as crude, ungraceful stems and flowers. 



It was necessary to select and interbreed, and 

 select again, for successive generations from 

 among a multitude of the progeny of this cross, 

 before a plant was finally secured that presented 

 the desirable combination of qualities, retaining 

 the whiteness of the Japanese parent, but rejecting 

 its undesired characteristics of leaf and stem, and 

 departing utterly from that particular parent in 

 point of size. 



[231] 



