PI/ANT SELECTION. HORTICULTCBAD STUDENTS TAKING A LESSON IN PLANT BREEEING ON 
OUR GROUNDS. 
The starting point in plant brecdlne Is to have a vivid mental picture of the plant tvpe desired. 
Then select the plant which is nearest the ideal, and set the offsprings ITrom it; from these, again select the 
indiviauai which nearest approaches the type in mind, and so on generation after generation until the de- 
sired object Is attained. In order to make rapid progress the same ideal must be kept in mind year by year 
est there be vacillation, and the progress of one year would be undone by a counter movement the follow- 
ing year. In working along these lines, we And that almost any character of a plant may be intensified 
This is the true way to dominate over the physical forms of life. Every group of plants is endowed with 
certain characteristics and surer results are obtained if we work along the same lines and do not attempt 
to change them. The more variable any species of plants are the more variation or starting points we 
have in such species; they are very plastic and yield readily to our wishes. By carefully watching and 
closely sttidying the habits of each particular variety of strawberry plant, it is possible to break the type 
and It will depart from its normal behavior; then It soon becomes plastic enough to allow of modification In 
the manner desired. We now have it practically under our control and it will yield readily to the ideal 
type we are working for; it is a wrong Idea to have In mind at one time several objects. We breed for 
one thing at a tmio. It the particular variety is deficient in productiveness, but possessing other points 
.showing supcrlorliy, then the prolificacy is the principal object worked for, giving sufllclent attention to 
other features discovered and taken up with a view to the Improvement of the plant to keep them up to 
the normal .-standard; when the one point we are working for attains our ideal, the next deficient point is 
taken up for improvement, breeding along these lines until all organisms of the plant are brought to our 
Ideal. Ihe above photo engraving shows sixty-five different varieties under restrictions at the starting 
point of plant brecdinK, having a certain object In mind, of an ideal type for each Individual variety 
bank's work, which .seems only to have been 
fairly begiin, i.s selection combined with breed- 
ing, selection coming first. 
Close, observing horticulturists have learned 
many facts as well as many laws of plant and 
animal life, but they have not yet learned what 
life itself is. They have found that physical 
life dwells in protoplasm and in nothing else, 
and (hat this life containing substance is the 
same in plant and animal organism; and fur- 
ther, the laws governing the growth and de- 
velopment of the two are largely identical. 
The progressive fruit grower makes use of all 
known facts and laws of life in order to im- 
prove the quality and quantity of the products 
of his fruiting fields. 
In our book for 1904 we made a quotation 
which we repeat this year because it is a funda- 
mental law of life: "The constant execuiion 
of a definite function gradually effects a struc- 
tural modification." 
The explanation of this terse statement is,' 
that properly directed energy in a definite di- 
rection will develop any part of the organism 
of plant or animal and this development will 
become so marked and fixed that it will be 
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