CHAPTER XIV 



MAKING BETTEE PLANTS 



It has been clearly demonstrated that it is possible to increase the 

 product per acre of the average farm up to 40 per cent simply by 

 the use of improved strains of seed developed on the farm itself, at 

 the cost of a little well-directed effort on the part of the farmer. 



TAOT. 



I. THE SCIENCE OF PLANT BREEDING 



135. A New Science. About fifty years ago a new 

 science was born. It is called the science of plant breed- 

 ing. Already it has created many new, highly desirable 

 plants, and improved many other old plants in a most 

 astonishing degree. It has established the principles of 

 an art that have enabled an expert to produce a seedless 

 orange ; to introduce better flavors into many fruits ; to 

 create plums of unusual size and texture ; to grow a 

 blackberry plant that bears a bushel or more of berries ; 

 to produce a peach-plum that hides the twigs with its 

 fruit ; to increase the size of many cultivated roots and 

 tubers and at the same time to decrease the amount of 

 woody fiber in them; to make potatoes, prunes, almonds, 

 lettuce, and apricots of larger size and better quality than 

 were known before ; and to improve many other fruits, 

 vegetables, flowers, and trees. 



136. The leading plant breeder in the world is Luther 

 Burbank, who now lives at Santa Rosa in California. He 

 was born in Massachusetts, March 7, 1849. As a boy he 

 was a great reader of good books and a close observer of 



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