CHAPTER XVI 



Seed Breeding and Growing 



The potentialities of every plant and its limitations 

 are inherent, fixed and immutable in the seed from 

 which it is developed and are made up of the balanced 

 sum of the different tendencies it receives in varying 

 degree from each of its ancestors back for an indefi- 

 nite number of generations. A very slight difference 

 in the character or the degree of any one of the ten- 

 dencies which go to make up this sum may make a 

 most material difference in the balance and so in the 

 resulting character of the plant produced. Different 

 plants, even of the same ancestry, vary greatly in 

 prepotency or in the relative dominance of the influ- 

 ence they have over descendants raised from seed 

 produced by them. 



In some cases all the plants raised from seed pro- 

 duced by a certain plant will be essentially alike and 

 closely resemble the seed-bearing plant, while seed 

 from another plant of the same parentage will develop 

 into plants differing from each other and seemingly 

 more influenced by some distant ancestor or by vary- 

 ing combinations of such influences than of those of 

 the plant which actually produced the seed from which 

 they were developed. Successful seed breeding can 

 only be accomplished by taking advantage of these 

 principles of heredity and variation, and by a wise 

 use of them it is possible to produce seed which can 



