28 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE 



tion system by the National Government of all plants brought in from 

 abroad has been more or less agitated recently, and the wisdom of such 

 action cannot be questioned. The State of California has maintained 

 such quarantine for many years, and has no doubt kept out many unde- 

 sirable insect immigrants. 



In conclusion, the speaker would say, that while our battery for 

 insect warfare may appear somewhat formidable, he believes that it 

 will steadily improve in the future. Our present losses from insect 

 attack must be greatly reduced and this will result from a more detailed 

 knowledge of the insects themselves throughout their range of distri- 

 bution, and a general adoption by those interested, of the recommenda- 

 tions which have proven to be of value. 



VEGETABLE BREEDING. 



W. VAN FLEET, LITTLE SILVER, N. J. 



The breeding of vegetables doubtless began when primitive man 

 ceased wholly to rely on the wild products of nature. The dawning 

 intelligence that made the beginnings of plant culture would soon lead 

 to discrimination in varieties and the perpetuation by various propaga- 

 tive means of the better rather than the inferior types of herbs, roots 

 and seeds found desirable for his use. Thus in all probability was 

 born selection the most powerful of all forces in the modification of 

 vegetable life by man. So potent and far reaching is selection con- 

 sistently carried through successive generations, and so widely do 

 modern cultivated forms differ from the original stocks, that the major- 

 ity of vegetables of the present day cannot with reasonable certainty 

 be traced back to their primitive species. The experiments of Vilmorin 

 showed that an edible root similar to the Student parsnip of modern 

 gardens could be evolved in less than five generations of critical selec- 

 tion from the common, semi-poisonous wild European parsnip, so we 

 may imagine the profound influence of continuous selection, running 

 back to far prehistoric ages, on the plants used as culinary vegetables. 

 What family of plants first claimed the attention of primitive man we 

 cannot with certainty know, but from the shadowy evidence of ancient 

 remains it would appear that beans, peas and related legumes were 

 among the earliest cultivated vegetables. Potent from the very outset, 

 notwithstanding the desultory manner it may have been practiced, 

 varietal selection yet remains the most certain and powerful method 

 of moulding vegetable life to meet the needs or fancies of man. It is 

 the truest form of breeding, the genuine pedigree work, by which we 

 have slowly climbed toward the goal of vegetable perfection. Violent 

 climatic changes, distant removals, intense fertilization and the little 

 known forces of mutation or bud variation have all had their influ- 

 ences, but they are small indeed compared to that of continued selec- 

 tion. Modification by intentional hybridization or cross-pollination, 

 though a powerful means of adding new characteristics, is of such re- 



