LUTHER BURBANK 



several of the best plants are again selected to 

 furnish seed for a new planting. Meantime the 

 seed of the remainder will suffice to plant a patch 

 of about five acres in the third year. 



The third year five hundred or more plants will 

 be grown of each of the individual selections, and 

 as many five-acre seed patches to produce seed for 

 general planting as there were individuals of the 

 first year whose progeny was considered worth 

 propagating. 



In the fourth year there will be seed for general 

 planting from the five-acre seed patches of the 

 previous year. There will be several five-acre seed 

 patches from the specially selected individuals of 

 the second year; and five hundred or more plants 

 of each of the individual selections. 



That is to say, in this fourth year we shall have 

 a general crop of cotton plants all of which are the 

 descendants in the third filial generation of the 

 five plants or thereabouts selected in the first year. 



And inasmuch as each successive year the five 

 or so best plants have been selected out to start 

 a new series, the process of betterment will go on 

 indefinitely. The general crop in each successive 

 year will represent the progeny, not of the crop of 

 the preceding year, but a third-generation offshoot 

 from the best plant of an earlier year. And the 

 crop of this year will of course supply five best 



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