CHAPTER XXVI 
THEORY OF PLANT BREEDING 
THE practical breeder of plants proceeds doggedly with 
his experiments, yearly launching on the world new and, 
it is to be hoped, distinctly lucrative varieties. 
All the time there is surging around him furious con- 
troversies which are shattering and overwhelming the 
very basic principles upon which the whole of his work 
depends. Now itis a high tide of Weissmannism, then a 
raging sea of Mendelism, which is followed by foaming 
waves of the theory of Mutants, and so on indefinitely. 
He knows nothing of these angry storms, and would 
not very much care about any of those proofs and deduc- 
tions and denials which so abundantly distinguish every 
new point of view. 
It is of course abundantly clear from every breeder’s 
experience that acquired characters are in some way or 
other inherited. One has only to refer to those Alpine 
larches (see p. 291), to Klebs’ experiments (p. 292), and 
to all ordinary gardening experience. 
Desert plants are adapted in almost every one of their 
characters to the necessities of the desert. It is an ex- 
tremely difficult matter to grow them in an ordinary 
British garden. But if a very skilled gardener can 
manage to raise a few out of many seeds, the results are 
very interesting. They retain some of the desert char- 
acteristics, but in a modified way. They are neither so 
hairy nor so woody, but yet show quite well the struggle 
which is going on between heredity and environment, 
They are trying to adapt themselves to the new con- 
ditions, but retain many desert characters. 
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