108 THE SEED-GROWER. 
In Europe, the beet-sugar industry has been vastly 
promoted by carefulness through selection in breeding 
varieties that yield the greatest percentage of sugar. 
As performed, a test is made of the beet roots selected 
for seed by cutting out a small cylinder of the flesh, 
and ascertaining by polarization the richness of sugar 
content. The doing of this does not injure the root for 
planting. 
The care that is taken in this testing may be imagined 
when it is said that in one season a firm in Europe 
tested nearly three million roots, from which number 
about three thousand were selected for seed-growing 
purposes, or about one root out of every one thousand 
tested. 
The Blanche Ferry sweet pea was discovered some 
years ago by a Jady in northern New York in her gar- 
den. She had noticed a particularly bright-colored 
flower in a row of the old ‘‘ Painted Lady.”’? This plant 
she selected and carefully saved its seeds, which were 
sown next year. For about ten successive years she 
continued to grow only this variety in her little garden, 
always saving her seed from the best plants. Its beauty 
was finally brought to the attention of a certain seeds- 
man, who purchased a quantity of the seeds from which 
a crop was produced, and the variety was then intro- 
duced by him to the world as the Blanche Ferry. 
Darwin relates of selection, that Williamson, after 
sowing, during several years, seeds of Anemone Cor- 
onaria, found a plant with one additional petal. He 
saved the seeds of this and by persevering in the same 
course, obtained several varieties with six or seven rows 
of petals. The single Scotch rose was doubled, and 
yielded eight good varieties in nine or ten years. The 
Canterbury Bell was doubled by careful selection in 
four generations. 
