1903.] BAILEY—MOVEMENT IN PLANT-BREEDING. 65 
the purpose of producing types or kinds of plants that shall meet 
particular requirements. Its work is now proceeding with many 
groups of plants, but the burden of all its effort is efficiency in the 
final product. Its work with cotton promises to do nothing less 
than to revolutionize the cotton industry. The special difficulty 
with the present Upland cotton is the shortness of the “‘ staple’’ or 
fibre. This inch-long staple sells at present (1903) for eight to 
eight and one-quarter cents a pound, whereas the long staple of 
the Sea Island cotton sells for twenty-five to thirty cents per pound. 
The effort is to secure a longer staple for the Upland, either by 
crossing it with the Sea Island or by working with some foreign 
long-staple type. The Egyptian cotton has a long staple, and this 
is now being used as one of the foundation stocks. But the 
Egyptian cotton possesses faults along with its long staple. It will 
be the work of years’ by means of careful selection, to augment or 
maintain the desirable qualities and to eliminate the undesirable 
qualities ; when this is done, the cotton will no longer be the 
Egyptian, but practically a new creation, and this new creation 
should receive a new name in order to distinguish it from the infe- 
rior Egyptian from which it will have had its birth. Under the 
leadership of Mr. Webber, this new plant-bleeding enterprise 
(probably the largest in the world) is now extended to citrous 
fruits, apples, pineapples, oats, tobaccos and other crops; and 
there is every indication that its usefulness will expand greatly 
within the immediate future. Other institutions, and other divis- 
ions of the Department of Agriculture, are conducting similar 
work. Time is now on when every resourceful farmer must look to 
the improving of the intrinsic merits of his crops. 
The modern methods of plant-bleeding demand, first, that the 
breeder shall familiarize himself thoroughly with the characteris- 
tics of the group of plants with which he is to work. He must 
have very specific and definite knowledge of what makes the plant 
valuable and what its shortcomings are. Then he must secure as 
starting-points plants that give promise in the ‘desired direction. 
Thereafter his skill will be taxed in selecting along responsive 
lines, making accurate and significant statistical measures, in devis- 
ing workable systems of testing. He must grow large numbers of 
plants, if he is working with farm crops, in order to multiply his 
chances of securing desirable variations and to minimize the errors. 
A promising course of breeding is one that shall develop disease- . 
PROC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. xLII. 172. E. PRINTED MAY 9, 1908. 
