RAISING NEW VARIETIES IO7 



Having saved seed from the selected seedlings, each 

 plant separate, the raiser will, in the third year, discover 

 which are dominants and which are recessives. Those 

 that come true in the third year will remain so; the others 

 are not worth keeping unless of distinct color, in which 

 case a few separate cultures may be grown on. 



The main point is to keep the seed of every plant 

 separate until fixity is assured. 



Of course, there is much of technical interest in Sweet 

 Pea breeding, and to grasp the subject fully one should 

 study one or more of the books devoted to breeding on 

 Mendelian principles. The average person can, however, 

 succeed if the above outlined details are followed, provid- 

 ing, of course, that time and space are available. One 

 need hardly state that when several thousands of single 

 plant cultures have to be tabulated the work is by no means 

 light. Unfixed stocks of varieties in commerce can be 

 thoroughly fixed by the adoption of the single plant culture 

 system, if the grower knows the varieties thoroughly, and 

 it would be well for all concerned if seed growers generally 

 set about improving their stocks by this means, and thus 

 relieve us of the bad mixtures that even now are all too 

 prevalent. 



The symbols employed by breeders to denote the 

 generations of their seedlings are Fi and F2; usually the 

 third generation is referred to in words. F stands for filia, 

 a daughter, and the numbers simply denote first or second. 

 The symbol is handy and universally understood among 

 those engaged in the work. The term "dominant" means 

 that a certain characteristic or group of characters always 

 assert themselves. Mendel found, for instance, that 

 smoothness as a character of the seed was dominant over 

 wrinkledness, also that yellow was dominant over green. 



