38 Plant-Breeding 



A plant in a cabbage row pleases him. It has a solid 

 small head and stout stem. He stores it away for seed. 

 Amongst the offspring, perhaps fifty per cent are as good 

 as the parent. These are saved. So the process goes 

 on, from season to season. In four or five generations 

 of plants, he finds that ninety per cent of the seeds "come 

 true." Then he names it and introduces it. It is well 

 advertised in the seed catalogues. Many persons buy the 

 seeds. Some of these persons will grow their own seeds, 

 and every one of them has a different ideal in mind when 

 selecting the seed parents. So, in the course of a few 

 years it is found that there are really several more or less 

 different forms under the same name. Some persons may 

 observe this difference and legitimately introduce one or 

 more of the forms as distinct varieties. Some other 

 person, however, who has known the history of the stock 

 and who is not aware that varieties pass into other forms, 

 objects to the new names and declares that the introducer 

 is imposing on the public. 



This is the history of ninety out of every hundred 

 varieties which are habitually propagated by seeds, like 

 the kitchen-garden vegetables and the annual flowers. 

 Some peculiar individual, appearing we know not why, is 

 discovered, and seeds are saved and selection perhaps 

 unconscious selection begins. After a time the variety 

 is broken up into several, or else, if it varies only slightly, 

 into divergent forms, the whole body or generations of 

 the variety move onward, gradually departing from the 

 initial type until it is no longer the same, although it 

 may bear the same name. The life of seed varieties, in 

 their pure and original forms, is very short. Even the 



