KK PLANT- 



BREEDING 



we are learning that the same holds good with 

 plants, and that the farmer who keeps the 

 small potatoes for seed will produce poorer 

 potatoes than he ought to have. 



The other day I found a farmer harvesting 

 a measly lot of com. " Where did you get that 

 seed?" I asked. " Oh," he said, " I picked it 

 up 'most anywhere." I could have told him 

 that myself without asking. 



Selection and breeding are not the work of 

 experts alone, for any one who gains the simple 

 knowledge that enables him to recognize the 

 plant or crop that resists prevailing diseases and 

 flourishes best under his conditions, needs only 

 to preserve the seed of such plants for propa- 

 gating. Cross-breeding, on the contrary, is ex- 

 pert work, but new strains may be secured by 

 straight selection of individual plants, and this 

 gives enormous results. If one persistently 

 saves the seeds of those plants that best serve 

 his purpose, he will soon have crops that are 

 superior to any that he had before. The pro- 

 cess is so simple that anybody can do it. We 

 have talked for years of the "survival of the 

 fittest," and this is but helping the best to beat 

 the poorer ones. 



What causes the variations that make selection 

 possible nobody yet knows; but we do know 



