March 13, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



415 



If placed early on grass or fed grain they 

 were relatively clear of disease. 



Mr. W. M. Hays, assistant secretary of 

 agriculture, reported on cooperative work 

 in animal breeding. He divided the sub- 

 ject into the three classes of creative breed- 

 ing on the production of new races; pure 

 bred breeding, or the improvement of estab- 

 lished races; and herd or grade breeding, 

 or the improvement of ordinary farm stock. 

 He spoke of the work of the committee in 

 the collecting of data concerning individual 

 performance and breeding power and pro- 

 posed the establishment of circuit breeding 

 as a means of finding individuals with 

 which to establish new and valuable 

 strains. 



Professor H. J. Webber reported for the 

 Committee on Theoretical Research in 

 Heredity. He referred to certain devia- 

 tions fi'om mendelism in apparently men- 

 delian phenomena. Thus in cotton the 

 upland race has smooth black seeds and 

 this smoothness is recessive to the fuzzy 

 type. But the F^^ generation shows all 

 gradations of fuzziness, and it is hard to 

 fix any one of these types. Thus if one 

 selects to bi'eed for the second generation 

 seeds of the black smooth type fuzziness 

 appears in that generation. Dr. Webber 

 also referred to the practise of corn breeders 

 in preventing self-fertilization as based on 

 insufficient evidence; and suggested that 

 we need additional evidence that close in- 

 breeding of corn results in loss of vigor. 



Professor Spillman read a paper entitled 

 "Mendelian Phenomena and Discontinuous 

 Variation Color Factors in the Mammalia. ' ' 

 He referred to the mendelian nature of 

 poll in cattle. He argued that the fact of 

 the absence of an intermediate type to-day 

 is no proof of the absence of an inter- 

 mediate form in the ancestry of the exist- 

 ing races. Discontinuity of variation is 

 due to the complexity of the characters of 

 a race. Variations that appear to be dis- 



continuous are due to new combinations 

 of characters. He spoke of belting and 

 other sorts of color inheritance in swine 

 and other mammals. 



C. B. Davenport in continuation of the 

 report on heredity gave evidence from 

 poultry breeding that between discontinu- 

 ous and continuous variation there are all 

 degrees; and that mendelian inheritance 

 differs not in kind but only in degree from 

 the blending inheritance of biometricians. 



Mr. C. W. Ward spoke of heredity in 

 carnations. He finds that the amount of 

 any character in the offspring depends 

 upon the proportion of ancestor in which 

 that character occurs. , Thus two white 

 flowers may throw all white, but if there 

 has been much pink in the ancestry they 

 may throw some pink in the flowers. 

 Again, the offspring of the same parents 

 will differ with the environmental condi- 

 tions of the season. 



Mr. B. M. East, of New Haven, spoke of 

 "Correlated Variations," from the stand- 

 point of plants. Professor W. E. Castle 

 gave an address on "Color Variations of 

 Domesticated Animals." He stated that 

 the colors found are selfs (either black, 

 red, white or gray) or spotted. These 

 various color varieties are known to us best 

 under domestication but they occur also in 

 nature not less than under domestication 

 only in nature they are eliminated; the 

 gray being the usual wild color because less 

 conspicuous. This gray is a complex of 

 three factors: black -f- yellow + a pigment 

 pattern (banding). Where the pattern 

 factor is absent yellow is dominated and 

 the coat is black. The spotted condition 

 is a mosaic that has arisen secondarily and 

 become fixed in the germ cells. 



Mr. A. F. Woods, of the U. S. Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, reported on "Co- 

 operative work in Plant Breeding. ' ' First, 

 the committee cooperates with individual 

 farmers by distributing certain seeds. 



