The Forward Movement in Plant-Breeding 307 



for preparatory work, with a little farm and a dwelling 

 house ; it also owns 40 acres of land, of which special 

 cultures and seed multiplication plots occupy 25 acres. 

 Despite this, it has been found necessary to make most 

 of the cultural experiments on the wide fields of the huge 

 property adjoining, in order to give the different cereals, 

 occupying in all about 30 acres a year, their proper place 

 in the rotation of crops, which is found absolutely neces- 

 sary for a normal development. 



The program of work in Sweden was, at first, vague 

 and uncertain. Theorizing scientists were attempting to 

 solve problems for practical farmers and nobody had 

 blazed the trail. The starting-point of the work was 

 naturally the method of selection in vogue at the time, 

 that is, the Darwinian method of " methodical selection" 

 or of "mass selection" as it is now called. By this system, 

 a selection of seed was made from a large number of plants 

 and the whole thrown together and sown "en masse" 

 in a single plot. But it soon became evident that this 

 method of selection was not yielding the results which the 

 Swedish farmers demanded better varieties which would 

 be constant. The method of selection was therefore 

 changed and in two years the difficulties were being over- 

 come by the new method. 



This new method consisted of testing individual plants 

 and their progeny instead of making, at once, a com- 

 posite test of many plants. 'This plan of individual 

 selection has proved itself. The results were convincing. 

 It left no doubt as to the fact that the only true starting- 

 point for the fixation of different types must be plants 

 taken one by one. 



