THE BREEDING OP PLANTS 



53 



ences to these may be found in writings specially 

 devoted to this subject. Many of the diseases that 

 have to do with special crops are discussed or 

 referred to under these crops. Most of the experi- 

 ment stations and the United States Department 

 of Agriculture have issued general and specific 

 bulletins on plant diseases. The card catalogue of 

 experiment station literature, issued by the United 

 States Department of Agriculture, is especially 

 helpful in this connection. A few important publi- 

 cations follow : Centralblatt fur Bacteriologie und 

 Parasitenkunde ; Cobb, Plant Diseases and Their 

 Remedies, Department of Agriculture, New South 

 Wales ; Cooke, Rusts, Smut, Mildew and Mold ; 

 Cooke, Introduction to Study of Fungi ; De Bary, 

 Morphology and Biology of Fungi, translated by 

 Garnsey and Balfour; Engler and Prantl, Die 



Naturlichen Pflanzenfamilien ; Hartig, Pflanzen- 

 krankheiten ; Hartig, Diseases of Trees, translated 

 by Sommerville and Ward ; Journal of 'Mycology ; 

 Kuster, Pathologiche Pflanzenanatomie ; Masse, 

 British Fungus Flora ; Revue Mycologique ; Scrib- 

 ner. Fungus Diseases, Selby, Handbook, Diseases 

 of Cultivated Plants, Ohio Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station Bulletin, No. 121; Smith, Diseases 

 of Field and Garden Crops ; Smith, Spread of Planfe 

 Diseases, see Massachusetts Horticultural Society 

 Report, 1898 ; Sorauer, Pflanzenkrankheiten ; Stone, 

 Diseases of Crops, not Generally Supposed to be 

 Caused by Fungi or Insects, Massachusetts Agri- 

 cultural Experiment Station Report, 1905 ; Under- 

 wood, Moulds and Mushrooms ; Von Tubeuf and 

 Smith, Diseases of Plants ; Ward, Diseases of 

 Plants; Freeman, Minnesota Plant Diseases. 



CHAPTER III 



THE BREEDING OF PLANTS 



pNTEREST IN PLANT-BREEDING is now one of the dominant notes in American agri- 

 culture. We have tended to proceed along one line of progress at a time. The 

 enriching of the soil has long been the most dominant note in agriculture. Of late 

 years, the importance of tillage has been again very strongly emphasized, with some 

 misapprehension, no doubt, of some of the real issues involved. In some periods, 

 underdrainage has been especially advised. At present, the desire to breed adaptable 

 kinds of plants has come strongly to the fore, following long years of insistence on 

 the part of prophets here and there. This plant -breeding phase of our development is not 

 likely to isolate itself, for we now have a body of investigators and teachers and of so many 

 minds that all phases of agriculture are likely to receive somewhat coordinate attention. 

 The larger part of plant-breeding work is now centralizing about the experiment stations and the 

 Department of Agriculture. This is characteristic of our time, for the institutions hold the leadership. 

 In time, when agricultural affairs have readjusted themselves, leadership will again lie in good part in 

 men engaged in commercial farming. There is every reason for supposing that plant-breeding should be 

 a personal enterprise as well as an institutional enterprise. 



These remarks do not lose sight of the fact that there are a few personal and isolated plant- 

 breeders, standing out strongly and doing their work by methods of their own. In this class, Luther 

 Burbank is preeminent. Burbank's work has been misjudged and sensationalized by reporters (a danger 

 which just now threatens all work of this kind), until the public is in great error in its estimate of it. 

 Mr. Burbank is experimenting with an unusual variety of plants in great numbers and under propitious 

 natural conditions, with strongly personal methods and points of view. His place abounds in surprising 

 and interesting results in the variation of plants. Some of the results will no doubt be of marked 

 economic value. But his work is not occult, nor is it revolutionary. It will rank among the great efforts 

 in the amelioration and adaptation of plants. It is calling attention to the fact that the intellectual 

 interest in variation may be quite as much worth while as interest in the aesthetic or other companion- 

 ship with plants. 



The reader will now want a statement of what plant-breeding is : it is the producing of plants that 

 jre adapted to specific conditions or requirements. The mere production of something new, or unlike 

 anything then existing, may have little merit or purpose, and it is not plant-breeding in the best sense. 

 It will be seen, therefore, that the first step in plant-breeding is a definite purpose or ideal ; one does 

 not develop this ideal until he has a clear conception of his business. 



The professional plant-breeders may be the persons to produce the larger and bolder races or groups ; 

 but it must lie with the individual farmer to adapt these things to his own place, or to be able to 



