78 PLANT-BREEDING 



one of the new varieties did not comply. The experimental 

 fields were in some sense large exhibits on which each farmer 

 could seek out the types that would best suit his soil and his 

 local conditions. 



This choice, however, had to be made at the station it- 

 self. It was impossible to multiply even many hundreds of 

 the new sorts. The best had to be chosen, and in order to 

 do this, all of them had to be compared with the utmost 

 care. A second line of work had to be set up, as important 

 as the first, but requiring a far larger amount of labor. The 

 new varieties had to be studied and tested, and to be tried 

 from all points of view. The study had to embrace their 

 whole lifetime, and the botanical marks and biological 

 symptoms as well as the industrial qualities, and their re- 

 quirements with respect to treatment. The botanical and 

 biological characters of the new sorts came first, because 

 they were more easily studied and because they afforded 

 an opportunity of reducing the number of the strains con- 

 siderably without the time-consuming and expensive tests 

 of the industrial qualities. In the meantime, all the families 

 were multiplied as fast as possible. As soon as some fell 

 out, the space left free was occupied by the remaining strains. 

 In this way, nearly the same extent of the field was sufficient 

 for the whole group, during a series of years. In the end, 

 only a few remained, but these had been tested in all 

 directions and found to be the very best. Of course, they 

 had also been compared with the ordinary unselected va- 

 rieties, and been proven to far surpass these. Five or six 

 years of continuous testing and of corresponding multipli- 

 cation are usually required before the end is reached. It is 

 quite sufficient when some few new varieties are yearly added 

 to the stock. So in the year 1901, eighteen excellent new- 

 types were offered to the trade. Among them, were five 

 new kinds of wheat, six of barley, three of oats and four of 



