212 Plant-Breeding 



selves from seeds just as closely as do the annual herbs, 

 if they were to be as carefully propagated by selected seeds 

 through a long course of generations. There is excellent 

 proof of this in the well-marked races or families of Rus- 

 sian apples. In that country, grafting had been little 

 employed, and consequently it has been necessary to select 

 seeds only from acceptable trees in order that the off- 

 spring might be more acceptable. So the Russian apples 

 have come to run in groups or families, each family bear- 

 ing the mark of some strong ancestor. Most of the 

 seedlings of the Oldenburg are recognizable because of 

 their likeness to the parent. We may thus trace an 

 incipient tendency in our own fruits towards racial 

 characters. The Fameuse type of apples, for example, 

 tends to perpetuate itself ; and a similar tendency is very 

 well marked in the Damson and Green Gage plums, the 

 Orange quince, Concord grapes, and Hill's Chili and 

 Crawford peaches. But inasmuch as bud-multiplication 

 is so essential in nursery practice, we can hardly hope 

 for the time when our trees and shrubs, or even our per- 

 ennial herbs, will "come true" with much certainty. In 

 them, therefore, we get new varieties by simply sowing 

 seeds; but in seed-propagated varieties we must depend 

 either on chance variations or else we must resort to 

 definite plant-breeding. 



Plant-breeding. The breeding of domestic animals is 

 attended, for the most part, with such definite and often 

 precise results that there has come to be a general desire 

 to extend the same principles to plants. It is not unusual 

 to hear well-informed people say that it is possible to breed 

 plants with as much certainty and exactness as it is to 



