AEID AGEICULTURE. 235 



of fruit will generally be better obtained by in- 

 trodvicing the farina of one variety of fruit into 

 the blossom of another than by propagating any 

 form from a single kind" (Bailey, "Survival of 

 the Unlike"). Perhaps at even an earlier time 

 than any of the dates mentioned, about the mid- 

 dle of the last centiiry, Louis Vilmorin discov- 

 ered the principle of selection for improving 

 plants. DeVries says that he was the first to 

 apply this principle to plants. His work is 

 classic in the improvement of sugar beets. He 

 did liis work, not by crossing or breeding proper, 

 but by selection of those beets which showed the 

 greatest specific gravity due to sugar. Toward 

 the last of the century, also, Maryano Lagasca of 

 Spain published some papers dealing with this 

 subject, and he interested Colonel LeOonteur in 

 the Island of Jersey, and LeConteur produced 

 some valuable new varieties of wheat. Thus we 

 ha^-e in the last of the eighteenth century and the 

 first part of the nineteenth century the begin- 

 ning of plant breeding almost contemporane- 

 ously in Holland, England, France, Spain, and 

 the United States. 



Fifty years ago some of the principal breed- 

 ers of cereals were Sheriff of Hadington Hall, 

 Scotland, and Hallet of England, who produced 

 pedigreed wheats ; Eimpau of Germany, who has 

 worked principally on rye ; Risler of Switzer- 

 land, and Farrar of Australia, who were breed- 

 ers of wheat. 



