A Pediorbe Plant. 
IMPROVEMENT 
OP SMALL FEUIT PLANTS BY SELEC 
TION. 
I HE following paper was read by R. M. 
X Kellogg at the annual meeting of the 
State Horticultural Society: 
William Steele, whose farm adjoins mine, 
paid S6,600 for a two-year-old heifer which had 
never given milk, nor was there any absolute 
certainty that she would make a successful 
breeder. It was not a "blind" sale, for it 
occurred at the Chicago Fat Stock show, and 
there were present a large number of the best 
stockmen in the country, and the bidding was 
very spirited until Mr. Steele secured the prize 
at the price named. 
It might be profitable for purposes of com- 
parison to study the history of this animal and 
learn the reason for attaching so much value 
to her. She was the ideal type of one of the 
most illustrious families of the Short Horn. 
Her ancestors on both sides for many genera- 
tions had been uniformly the greatest prize 
takers at the largest stock shows in this coun- 
try and Europe. There had not been a single 
break, and matings had been made with the 
greatest care that even the slightest detects 
might be ehminated from the offspring. Her 
registered pedigree on both sides went back 
into the last century, so that all probability of 
reversion or taking on defects of remote ances- 
tors had been removed. The offspring of these 
famous animals were valued away up m the 
thousands, having been sold as high as 842,500, 
and at these fabulous ftgures were enormously 
profitable. Their real worth as breeders is 
not questioned. No successful stock breeder 
thinks of touching an animal until he thor- 
oughly investigates its pedigree, for it is con- 
ceded by all that the same care will produce a 
much larger percentage of clear profit than 
common scrub stock. 
Now, Plants are Male and Female and 
are governed by all the laws that obtain in 
the breeding of animals. The organs of repro- 
duction are as perfect in the one as in the 
other and are as much improved by selecting 
perfect specimens for mating. Plants are sub- 
ject to disease and transmit their constitutional 
weaknesses with as much certainty as do ani- 
mals, and manifest as great tendency to revert 
and take on defects of ancestors. 
Cross-fertilization and bud variation are the 
methods of producing new varieties. All 
planters know that from the same seed the 
greatest variation of form, color and product- 
iveness are constantly developing. Now let us 
look for a moment at the treatment animals 
and plants receive at all our fairs. An animal, 
to be famous as a breeder, must be a great 
prize taker, and must be passed upon by emi- 
nent judges and pronounced perfect in all 
points. The first premium always means 
superiority over all competitors for breeding 
or some special purpose. If a breeding animal 
and a universal prize taker and offspring is 
