'I'HI': ORCHID WORT.T). 
^'3 
or pure, for the good qualities required, the 
majority will be heterozygous, or impure, for 
those particular characters. For stud pur- 
poses these heterozygous, or impure, forms 
should be discarded at once, no matter how 
good-looking they may be, and only the 
homozygous, or pure, forms should be used for 
future breeding. Should the homozygous, or 
pure, forms not turn up quickly enough for 
his purpose, the breeder can always make 
them from the heterozygous, or impure, 
forms 111 the ordinary Mendelian way. In 
many cases no doubt this will be well worth 
doing. 
This rigorous elimination of the heterozy- 
gous plants that throw unwanted forms may 
sometimes require considerable courage on 
the part of the Orchid breeder, involving, as 
it does, the sacrifice of certain prejudices and 
predilections, especially when it comes to the 
point of discarding for stud purposes a much- 
prized plant that has, perhaps, won the classic 
F.C.C. at the R.H.S. The Science of Genetics 
tells us plainly that things are not always 
what they seem, and a good-looking plant is 
not always a good plant to breed from. Only 
a few Derby winners are successful at the 
stud, everything depends on their germinal 
constitution. From the genetic point of view, 
it would be a far sounder proposition to use 
for breeding an individual Orchid that had 
bred an F.C.C. winner, than to use an actual 
winner of the F.C.C. that had no breeding- 
record. 
The F.C.C. awarded by the Orchid Com- 
mittee of the R.H.S. is universally acknow- 
ledged to be the highest prize m the Orchid 
v\-orld, and winners of this prize may be 
regarded as classic Orchids. From the point 
of view of genetics, the individual parents of 
these classic winners deserve special recogni- 
tion as stud Orchids. 
A reference to the records shows that 
during the past three years ii8 F.C.C.'s have 
been awarded by the Orchid Committee of 
the R.H.S. Of these F.C.C. winners 87 
appear to be hand-raised hybrids. Of the 174 
parents of these hybrids only 31 can be iden- 
tified from the records as individual plants, 
and it is quite possible that a few of these 
names even may be represented 111 collections 
by more than one seedling mdixulual. 
May I venture to suggest that s])eci;d 
groups made up of these stud Orchids and 
their progeny would provide an exhibit at 
the R.H.S. shows that would not only be 
interesting to Orchid growers generally, but 
would be particularly useful to Orchid 
breeders as a demonstration of the germinal 
constitution of these stud Orchids. Competi- 
tive classes might even be arranged for these 
progeny tests, to decide which indu'idual 
Orchids are best for stud purposes. 
The result would be to create a special 
demand for high-priced stud Orchids that 
does not exist to-day. In view of the increas- 
ing numbers of Orchid growers all over the 
world, it is hardly likely that such a demand 
would be confined to the British Isles, and 
there is no reason why this country should 
not in the future provide the world with stud 
Orchids as it does to-day with thoroughbred 
horses and pedigree animals generally. 
So far we have dealt with the general 
application of the principles of genetics to 
Orchid breeding. It may be useful now to 
put the matter into a somewhat more concrete 
form by suggesting, briefly, a few special 
possibilities of the practical application of 
genetics to Orchid breeding. 
The Breeding of Albinos. 
The beauty and value of albino Orchids is 
generally recognised, and the Orchid breeder 
naturally wishes to raise new and improved 
forms by hybridisation. In other words, he 
wishes to vary the shape and size of the 
flower while retaining the chaste beaut)- of 
the true albino. So far as we know, all 
albino Orchids breed true to albinism when 
selfed, but no remarkable improvement in 
shape, size and distinctness can be obtained 
in this way. On the other hand, as we have 
already seen, when differerlt species of albinos 
are crossed they do not always breed true to 
albinism, but often give coloured formes which 
are not wanted by the Orchid breeder. 
The Science of Genetics has provided a 
reasonable explanation of tiiese interesting 
