May, 19 10 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



231 



liable to blot in case it 

 is wet. Once I found it 

 necessary to copy my work 

 as a result of a few drops 

 of rain. 



The novelty in my 

 method is found in the 

 use of the ruled paper 

 and thus making a definite 

 working plan with only a 

 rule and pencils for instru- 

 ments. This can be taken 

 out to the garden and 

 followed minutely without 

 confusion or the loss of 

 time when it is important 

 to make every minute 

 count. Also a plan in ad- 

 vance enables one to utilize 

 every foot of space to the 

 best advantage. I have 

 also found it worth while 

 of the dates when seeds 

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Or 







Each foot of this garden is numbered in this plan and a heavy line ruled over the faint 



line to mark the crop's place 



to keep a record 

 are planted and 

 bought; also, I 



presume, a record showing when crops 

 matured would be useful. 



I fasten my chart and table to the leaves 



on opposite pages of an 

 everyday tile made by one 

 of the well-known con- 

 cerns, with strips of gum- 

 med cloth tape. In this 

 way I preserve the records 

 for several years, together 

 with similar plans, and 

 charts for our flower gar- 

 dens. This year I shall drive 

 small stakes into the ground 

 eight feet apart; each one 

 will be marked to show the 

 distance from the fence so 

 I can locate each row with 

 a four-foot rule. 



I have used the system 



described for three years, 



and while some minor 



changes have been made, 



I am convinced the general 



idea is practicable, and by its use I have 



obtained much more from the garden by 



continuously utilizing the ground. 



A Crop Worth $10,000 an Acre -By l. c. Corbett, 



Horticulturist 

 Dept. of Agriculture 







THE most noteworthy illustration of 

 the application of science to com- 

 mercial horticulture is, I believe, to be found 

 in the work of breeding hybrid double 

 petunias. There is an annual demand for 

 a small quantity of a superb strain of double 

 petunia seed. This strain of seed is the work 

 of a quarter of a century of painstaking 

 selection and crossbreeding. 



The methods by which this superb seed 

 is produced are worthy of special mention, 

 for I believe it is the only case of a standard 

 commercial article being annually produced 

 by the application of the principles of scien- 

 tific plant breeding. This seed is all pro- 

 duced by hand pollination of emasculated 

 flowers. The mother plants are carefully 

 selected both for color and form of the flowers 

 according to the character of the pollen to 

 be placed upon them. The pollen-bearing 

 plants are relied upon to carry both form and 

 color to a large extent, although both parents 

 are the result of careful line breeding based 

 on both form and color. The utmost care 

 is exercised in combining the colors. Laven- 

 ders must exist in both parents if this color 

 scheme is to be preserved. No reds, pinks 

 or purples are ever allowed to come into these 

 crosses. The mother plant of the most 

 highly colored reds, carmines, maroons and 

 purples are either pure white or with only 

 a suggestion of pink. Dominant colors are 

 not desired in the pistillate plant. In form, 

 too, the pistillate plant is simple; the pollen 

 bearer being relied upon to give both form 

 and color to the resulting hybrid. The color 

 scheme followed has been worked out 

 through generation after generation until 

 the law of their combination is thoroughly 

 understood and can be used with precision. 



In this industry we find the practical 

 application of the laws of form and color. 

 And in the offspring which is a first-genera- 



High grade double petunia seed is the product of 

 most careful selection and cross breeding by hand 



tion hyhrid we have a demonstration of the 

 value of a form that plant breeders are just 

 beginning to consider as possessing qualities 

 of merit. The first-generation hybrid has 

 always been the stumbling block of the 

 plant breeders. It is not now understood 

 or appreciated. The fact that "breaking 

 up," the result of hybridization does not 

 come until the second generation was not 

 recognized until within the last decade, and 

 since that one fact has been known greater 

 advances in hybridization have been made 

 than were made from the time of Thomas 

 Andrew Knight up to that time. But the 

 value of the fixity in the first-generaton 

 hybrid is yet almost as much of an enigma 



as ever. We have just begun to learn its 

 value. Someone has suggested that first- 

 generation hybrid corn might be of value 

 because it has been proven .more vigorous 

 and productive than line-bred corn. This 

 theory of corn breeding so far as commercial 

 corn culture is concerned is yet unknown. 

 The vigor of the first-generation hybrid was 

 markedly shown in Oliver's lettuce hybrids, 

 but it remained for the breeder of these su- 

 perb double petunias to discover the value of 

 this form and make a commercial application 

 of it. Mr. Gould has been making use of 

 this form for many years with marked 

 success. As high as 85 per cent, of these 

 hybrids are known to follow the form and 

 color scheme of the dominant parent and 

 to possess a more robust habit than line- 

 bred plants. In this work we have a mani- 

 festation of the value of the "know how." 

 This industry consists of about 1 per cent. 

 of material equipment and 99 per cent, 

 of skill. 



There is still another attractive feature 

 of this industry. The product resulting 

 from this application of skill and knowledge 

 is probably the most valuable horticultural 

 commodity produced in America, being 

 worth about five times its weight in gold. 

 While the possible product is extremely 

 limited, as is also the market, it represents 

 one of the most if not the most intensive 

 horticultural industry annually carried on. 

 The largest annual crop ever produced by 

 a single individual is reported as five ounces, 

 yet this was produced on an area of less than 

 one-twentieth of an acre. The return from 

 this industry is at the rate of $10,000 per 

 acre, which sets a new high mark for the 

 return from an annual crop. 



Such achievements as these suggest the 

 question — What is possible on an acre of 

 land? 



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