58 PLANT-BREEDING 



many, real improvement was treated as a separate occupation 

 and was considered as requiring a large amount of study, 

 and the devoting of oneself to a proposed aim. The gener- 

 al custom was to start such experiments from the best local 

 or improved varieties by an initial choice of a certain number 

 of typical heads. Such . a group of selected plants was 

 called the elite, and this elite had to be ameliorated accord- 

 ing to the prevailing demands or even simply in accordance 

 with some ideal model. Year after year, the best ears of 

 the elite group were chosen for the continuance of the strain 

 or family, and slowly, but gradually, its qualities were seen 

 to improve in the desired direction. After some years, 

 such a family might become decidedly better than the variety 

 from which it had been derived. Then its yearly harvest 

 would be divided into two parts, after having been sufficiently 

 purified by the rejection of accidental ears of minor worth. 

 The best ears were carefully sought out and laid aside for 

 the continuance of the elite strain, but the remainder were 

 sown on a distant field in order to be multiplied as fast as 

 possible. By this means, after a multiplication during two 

 or three generations, its product could be used as seed grain 

 for the farm or sold to others for the same purpose. Each 

 year the elite would, of course, give a new and better har- 

 vest which could be multiplied and sold in the same manner. 

 From this description, it may easily be gathered that an 

 improved variety, produced after these principles, cannot 

 be called a race in the ordinary sense of the word. Only 

 the elite itself is a pure race, but it consists of only a small 

 family, cultivated on a single farm. The extensive cultures of 

 the succeeding years, however, are not related to one an- 

 other in the ordinary way of ancestors and descendants. 

 They are, or at least they should be, the ends of succeeding 

 side-branches of the elite, each branch being surpassed in 

 excellence by its successor, and therefore no longer deserv- 



