FINAL SELECTION 



seldom has his choice determined by a single 

 characteristic, obvious or otherwise. 



SELECTING FOR A SINGLE CHARACTER 



Yet there are cases where an experimenter is 

 working with a single plant-characteristic in view, 

 as, for example, when I successfully attempted to 

 develop scented callas and dahlias and verbenas. 



Here, obviously, the task of selection is com- 

 paratively simple. We are dealing in each case 

 with a flower that has certain desired qualities of 

 color that are firmly fixed in its heredity. The one 

 conspicuous point of variation among thousands 

 of specimens is the presence or absence of a 

 pleasing aroma. 



It is necessary, then, merely to select the 

 individual plants that have the most pleasing 

 perfume and to use these only for carrying on the 

 experiment. By making such selection generation 

 after generation, choosing always the sweet- 

 scented and rejecting the others, it proves possible 

 to accentuate and fix the quality of perfume-pro- 

 duction without altering the other characteristics 

 of the respective flowers in question. 



Again the quality sought may be a particular 

 color of blossom, and it may be desirable to pay 

 attention to this only, practically disregarding 

 all other qualities. Such, for example, was the 

 case with my experiments with the crimson 



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