502 



THE AMERICAN NATURALIST 



[Vol. XLV 



tions indicate "that the hiuh-layinu' mothers tend to produce 

 low-laying daughters; selection to increase egg production actu- 

 ally decreases it." 



Definite numerical data tending to show that fecundity in the 

 domestic fowl is inherited has lteen presented hy the writer in 

 the June, 1911, number of the Amkrk ax Nati kaijst (pp. 321- 

 345). It obviously need not be repeated here. Any interested 

 person may examine the data and draw his own conclusions as 

 to whether "selection to increase egg production actually de- 

 creases it," when this selection takes the form of isolating geno- 

 types of high fecundity. 



2. The second point made by Harris is against what was in- 

 tended to be a popular bulletin on sweet corn' 1 in the introduc- 

 tion to which the following statement was made: "It is the 

 purpose of this bulletin to give a brief account of the general 

 features of the experiments carried on during the past three 

 years in sweet-corn breeding. Further discussion of the technic- 

 ally scientific results of this work is reserved for later publica- 

 tion." No such publication has appeared. 



The criticism of this bulletin is included in a section headed 

 "Improvement for any Single Character can not be Supposed 

 to be Unlimited." The facts are these: In 1907 selection was 

 begun for earliness in an excellent strain of sweet corn. A 

 marked gain was made in the quality after one year's selection. 

 Xo further gain has been made though selection has been con- 

 tinued. 



It is Harris's contention that probably after one year's selec- 

 tion the strain had reached its physiological limit in earliness, 

 and that the result obtained can not be urged against the bio- 

 metric theory respecting selection, nor in favor of the genotype 

 concept. He further gives the reader the impression that Dr. 

 Surface and I regarded these results on earliness as having an 

 important and critical bearing upon theories of selection and 

 inheritance. For the benefit of those readers who do not follow 

 agricultural literature it may be well to quote the final conclu- 

 sion (numbered 14) printed on p. 307 of the bulletin Harris 



