64 BAILEY—MOVEMENT IN PLANT-BREEDING. [April 2, 
in fact, nearly all of the field crops where it is necessary or very 
advantageous to grow or plant in a hill, that selections may be 
made and the breeding powers of parent plants measured. The 
general features of this statistical work may be stated as follows: 
Every acquisition or newly-bred variety receives a number written 
thus, ‘Minn. No. 13 corn,’ for example. It is also botanically 
described and the facts concerning its history, name, description, 
etc., entered in our Minnesota Number Book. If the newly- 
secured variety is an exceptionally promising one it is put into 
field tests, but ordinarily in the preliminary garden test the first 
year. Promising acquisitions and promising newly-bred hybrid 
stocks are entered in the nursery, where their breeding by rigid 
selection is begun, and large numbers of plants are grown, one in 
each hill, giving each plant the same space and opportunities as 
each other plant. By processes of elimination, the few best per- 
formers are secured. The next year we plant a large number of the 
progeny of each of these superior mother-plants. The average 
yield, height and other measures are taken of the progeny of each 
mother-plant. These tests of the breeding values of the mother- 
plants are continued two and sometimes three years. Seeds from 
parent plants producing the best average progeny are used alone or 
in mixtures of close-pollinated species, and in mixtures in open 
pollinated species as the foundation of new varieties. These are 
tested in the field with the parent and other best standard varieties 
for three years. Any introduced or newly-bred variety which is 
an especially good yielder of value per acre is sent to the co-opera- 
ting State Experiment Stations in surrounding States and to our sub- 
stations, and its quantity is rapidly increased. Any variety that is 
specially promising after being tried for, say, two years at several 
stations is increased to sufficient quantity to sell to a number of 
farmers in each county in the State. This seed, backed by all 
the force of pedigree that we can command, is sold at a high price, 
so as to make the seed business profitable, and men are induced to 
raise it and sell large quantities at a price which will yield them a 
profit. In this way our: first new wheat will be planted on hun- 
dreds of thousands of acres this year, and other new things are 
being widely disseminated.”’ 
A most gratifying augury of this coming type of effort is to be 
found in the work of the Plant-Breeding Laboratory of the national 
Department of Agriculture. This is an organization effected for 
