592 TRANSACTIONS OF SUB-SECTION K. 



has been inoperative. But in peas crossing is assuredly not the source of the 

 ordinary rogues. These plants have a very peculiar conformation, being tall and 

 straggling, with long internodes, small leaves, and small flowers, which together 

 give them a curious wild look. When one compares them with the typical cul- 

 tivated plants which have a more luxuriant habit, it seems difficult to suppose 

 that the rogue can really be recessive in such a type. True, we cannot say 

 definitely a priori that any one character is dominant to another, but old precon- 

 ceptions are so strong that without actual evidence we always incline to think of 

 the wilder and more primitive characteristics as dominants. Nevertheless, from 

 such observations as I have been able to make I cannot find any valid reason 

 for doubting that the rogues are really recessives to the type. One feature in 

 particular is quite inconsistent with the belief that these rogues are in any 

 proper sense degenerative returns to a wild type, for in several examples the 

 rogues have pointed pods like the cultivated sorts from which they have pre- 

 sumably been derived. All the more primitive kinds have the dominant stump- 

 ended pod. If the rogues had the stump pods they would fall in the class of 

 dominants, but they have no single quality which can be declared to be certainly 

 dominant to the type, and I see no reason why they may not be actually mis- 

 sives to it after all. Whether this is the true account or not we shall know for 

 certain next year. Mr. Sutton has given me a quantity of material which we are 

 now investigating at the John Innes Horticultural Institution, and by sowing the 

 seed of a great number of individual plants separately I anticipate that we shall 

 prove the rogue-throwers to be a class apart. The pure types then separately 

 saved should, according to expectation, remain rogue-free, unless further sporting 

 or fresh contamination occurs. If it prove that the long and attenuated rogues 

 are really recessive to the shorter and more robust type, the case will be one 

 of much physiological significance, but I believe a parallel already exists in the 

 case of wheats, for among certain crosses bred by Professor Biffen, some curious 

 spelt-like plants occurred among the derivatives from such robust wheats as 

 Rivet and Red Fife. 



There is another large and important class of cases to which similar con- 

 siderations apply. I refer to the bolting or running to seed of crops grown as 

 biennials, especially root crops. It has hitherto been universally supposed that 

 the loss due to this cause, amounting in Sugar Beet as it frequently does to 

 five, or even more per cent., is not preventable. This may prove to be the truth, 

 but I think it is not impossible that the bolters can be wholly, or almost wholly, 

 eliminated by the application of proper breeding methods. In this particular 

 example I know that season and conditions of cultivation count for a good deal 

 in promoting or checking the tendency to run to seed, nevertheless one can 

 scarcely witness the sharp distinction between the annual and biennial forms 

 without suspecting that genetic composition is largely responsible. If it proves 

 to be so, we shall have another remarkable illustration of the direct applica- 

 bility of knowledge gained from a purely academic source. ' Let not him 

 that putteth his armour on boast him as he that putteth it off,' and I am 

 quite alive to the many obstacles which may lie between the conception of an 

 idea and its realisation. One thing, however, is certain, that we have now the 

 power to formulate rightly the question which the breeder is to put to Nature ; 

 and this power and the whole apparatus by which he can obtain an answer to his 

 question — in whatever sense that answer may be given — has been derived from 

 experiments designed with the immediate object of investigating that scholastic 

 and seemingly barren problem, 'What is a species?' If Mendel's eight years' 

 work had been done in an agricultural school supported by public money, I can 

 imagine much shaking of heads on the County Council governing that institution, 

 and yet it is no longer in dispute that he provided the one bit of solid discovery 

 upon which all breeding practice will henceforth be based. 



Everywhere the same need for accurate knowledge is apparent. I suppose 

 horse-breeding is an art which has by the application of common-sense and 

 great experience been carried to about as high a point of perfection as any. 

 Yet even here I have seen a mistake made which is obvious to anyone accus- 

 tomed to analytical breeding. Among a number of stallions provided at great 

 expense to improve the breed of horses in a certain district was one which was 

 shown me as something of a curiosity. This particular animal had been bred by 



