FUTURE OF THE SCIENCE OF BREEDING 185 



stations would long ago have brought the authorities to 

 realise what is possible on a larger scale. 



To any one of average intelUgence the practical outcome 

 of Mendel's discovery has been obvious for more than a 

 decade. I confess that I have often been struck with amaze- 

 ment that, with one notable exception, not a single statesman 

 in this country seems to have had imagination enough to give 

 the subject even a thought. Even to-day, when there is so 

 much talk about the development of the resources of the 

 Empire, it is strange that no attention has been directed to a 

 source of wealth so colossal in extent and attainable through 

 such simple and obvious means. Let us hope that this period 

 of ignorance in high places is now past, and that investigations, 

 which are bound to lead to such enormous additions to our 

 national resources, will in future be fostered and encouraged. 



Suggestions as to how this is to be done, as to the way in 

 which the Science of Breeding is to be given a future worth 

 having, would carry little weight from an academic person like 

 myself. But while the great ones nod it is surely permitted to 

 the student to dream, and it is with a brief account of such a 

 vision that I would conclude what I have to say this evening. 



I saw before me a great place where men and women were 

 making and imparting knowledge, but it was the making of 

 knowledge to which they seemed to give most thought. And 

 perhaps because my interests lay chiefly in the subject of 

 genetics, it was in those parts of the place where such studies 

 were pursued that I came to find myself. There were acres of 

 gardens hedged around with yew and other evergreens. In 

 each one of these gardens there was growing a different manner 

 of plant. One garden was given up to all sorts of peas, another 

 to the various kinds of bean, another to sunflowers, and so on. 

 I was told that this was the great collection of the varieties of 

 valuable plants that would grow in the country. It was to the 

 breeder what his stock of pure reagents was to the chemist. 



Each garden, I learned, was in charge of one whose 

 business it was to devote his or her life to the particular plant 

 that it contained. By the gardens, too, were houses where 

 these people lived, so that they might at all hours be among and 



