i68 PLANT-BREEDING 



berries and numerous species of flowering plants. Some 

 of them soon prove to be promising and are chosen, others 

 offer no prospects and are rejected. The total number of 

 the species he has taken into his cultures amounts to 2,500. 

 The list of the introductions of last year shows 500 species, 

 mostly from South America and Australia. Formerly he 

 often made excursions, in order to collect the most beautiful 

 wild flowers or the best berries of Northern California, but 

 for several years he has had no time to spare for this work. 

 He has two collectors, who collect only for him, and many 

 correspondents who send valuable bulbs and seeds, from time 

 to time. One of his collectors travels in Chile, the other in 

 Australia, preferring the regions in which the climate cor- 

 responds best with that of Santa Rosa. The Australian 

 plants are usually sent to him under their botanical names, 

 the South American often without any names at all, only 

 the date and locality of collection being indicated. This 

 insufficiency of denomination is of no importance at all for 

 the practical work, but often diminishes the scientific value 

 of the experiment, as for example, in the case of the spineless 

 cactus. The thornless species with which he crossed the 

 edible varieties have been sent to him from Mexico and else- 

 where without names, and they have been eliminated from 

 the cultures as soon as the required crosses have been made. 

 Hence it is evident that a scientific pedigree of his now re- 

 nowned spineless and edible cactus will always remain 

 surrounded with doubt as to the initial ancestry. 



-\S1-^*-ft. 



Besides his collectors in other countries and his corres- 

 pondents widely scattered through the United States, he 

 is constantly on the lookout for odd sorts of fruits or flowers, 

 in order to combine them with the existing varieties. He 

 procures seeds from the nurseries of all countries, from 

 Europe and Japan as well as from America. He brings 

 together, in each genus, as many species as possible before 



