390 



PLANT AND ANIMAL BREEDING 



The Practical Results. — Already some progress has been made 

 in the application of Mendel's laws to hybridization. The United 

 States Department of Agriculture is now producing cold-resistant 

 fruits and grains in the Alaska experiment station. A hybrid which 

 is a cross between the watermelon and the citron has produced a 

 fruit that will resist " wilt/' a serious fungus disease of melons. 

 Rust-resisting wheats also have been produced in this country; 

 while in England experiments on wheat have resulted in the 

 production of resistance to disease, " hardness " of grain, and in- 

 crease in the size of the grain and of the head — all characters 

 which mean greater productiveness. But most of the hybridizing 

 is still done on a hit-or-miss principle, with few permanent results. 



General view of field plots devoted to experiments with cereals. View taken from 

 Military Road at Arlington Experiment Farm, Arlington, Virginia. 



Luther Burbank, the great hybridizer of California, destroyed 

 tens of thousands of plants in order to get one or two with the 

 characters which he wished to preserve. A number of years ago 

 he succeeded in producing a new variety of potato, which in a few 

 years enriched the farmers of this country to the extent of millions 

 of dollars every year. One of his varieties of black walnut trees, 

 a very valuable hard wood, grows ten to twelve times as rapidly 

 as ordinarj^ black walnuts. With lumber steadily increasing in 

 price, a quick-growing tree becomes a very valuable commercial 

 product. Among his famous hybrids are the plumcot, a cross 

 between an apricot and a plum, numerous varieties of berries, and 

 the splendid " Climax " plum, the result of a cross between a 

 bitter Chinese plum and an edible Japanese plum. But practically 



