32 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE 



THE BREEDING AND PROPAGATION OF FLORISTS' 

 FLOWERS. 



W. N. RUDD, MORGAN PARK, ILL. 



The coupling of these two subjects together seems eminently 

 proper, as the present situation especially with regard to the carna- 

 tion is that the breeders are yearly producing new and better varie- 

 ties, and the grower is just as rapidly destroying them by improper 

 methods of propagating and growing. 



Perhaps a short summary of the extent, or better, the limitation, 

 of the writer's experience may be of use in estimating the value of any 

 ideas advanced in this paper. For some eighteen years I have been 

 actively engaged in growing cut flowers for market purposes, largely 

 carnations and chrysanthemums, and for the last thirteen years have 

 been interested in the breeding of carnations with no very striking 

 success so far as the putting out of phenomenal new things is con- 

 cerned. The work has been conducted strictly from the commercial 

 standpoint and, like all work of this kind conducted from this stand- 

 point, has but little value in a scientific way. Questions of economy, 

 the saving of time, labor and greenhouse space compel the dropping 

 of any line so soon as it shall appear not to offer reasonable chances 

 for gain. We cannot study retrograde or degenerate movements. 

 Failures that is, . undesirable types are at once destroyed and re- 

 placed by what seems to give more chance of gain, and no proper study- 

 is, or can be made of the causes of the retrogression or degeneracy. 

 This same commercial pressure and desire to economize time, leads 

 us to keep incomplete records and lays us open to more than a sus- 

 picion of inaccuracy. General statements, summaries or conclusions, 

 no matter how positively put forth by us, are open to suspicion also, 

 because we have no true conception of what scientific accuracy means. 

 Many of us entirely fail to study the scientific work which has been 

 done, or is being done in breeding and heredity, while the best of us 

 can hardly lay claim to more than a superficial knowledge of it, gained 

 through digests, reviews and summaries. 



On the other hand the scientific student of these matters is not 

 primarily concerned about the commercial value of his products, and 

 will preserve for careful study degenerate or sickly individuals which 

 the commercial breeder will promptly discard. Failures are failures, 

 simply, to the one, while to the other they are often subjects for care- 

 ful study as possibly containing the key to the cause. The one is con- 

 cerned solely with the value of the resulting individual, and has neither 

 the time, knowledge nor inclination to search deeply into the cause. To 

 the other, the cause is the main matter of interest, and the possible 

 commercial value of the result is a subordinate one. The commercial 

 breeder has a thorough knowledge of commercial values, and a highly 

 cultivated, almost instinctive selective sense for progressive or valu- 

 able traits. The scientific student is quite generally deficient in knowl- 

 edge of commercial values. 



