A BUSY DAY ON THE B. M. KEU.OGG CO.'S JPLANX BREEDING FARMS. 
Prom early spring till November every day finds a full force of men at work on our grounds. As" 
the above illustration shows, the spraying machine leads in the work and this in turn is followed by the 
cultivators: then comes the army of hoemen. each using a small, narrow pointed hoe, breaking up any 
crust left directly in the row where the cultivator cannot reach, taking care not to disturb any runner 
plants that have started to send down roots, and also to place dirt just behind the nodes of all the runnera 
that haven't started roots; this holds them in their places until root growth begins, and encourages all the 
roots possible to start direct from the crowns, which makes an Ideal plant. The spray machine always 
keeps far enough ahead of cultivators to insure that the liquid becomes thoroughly dry before any dust 
Is raised to adhere to the leaf which would effect the chemical action of the spray materials. In Just 
two and one half days after each rain the entire 80 acres of plants are blanketed with a perfect dust 
mulch. You don't see any boys in the battle: the entire regiment is made up of the very best and most 
painstalcing men this country produces. We have been years picking them out and many of them have 
been enlisted here so long that we would not be surprised if they yet malve applications for pensions. The 
Captain leads the men Into the field of action at Just 7 o'clock in the morning; at noon each one sits 
down to a full dinner pail, starting again at prompt one, keeping a steady gait until six o'clock when ail 
go cheerfully to their happy homes. We pay the best wages and get the very best men that do the very 
best work. 
I<. H. BAILEY, SI. S. 
Director of the School of Agriculture, Cornell 
University, Ithara, N. Y., and author of Plant Breed- 
ing. Every berry grower should have a copy of this 
valuable book. It is published and sold by Macmil- 
lan & Co., 66 Fifth avenue. New York. Pt'ice tl.OO. 
weakness, for it is only by propasating from 
the plant or tree having the stronger fruiting 
tendency that he can expect to secure an im- 
provement in quality and quantity of fruit. 
Thq reputation of a plant breeder for skill 
counts for as much as that of a judge at a 
poultry show; no two judges scale a chicken 
ji'St .:he same, but the verdict of the one 
kno-./n to possess the greater skill is accepted 
as final. So with plants. 
The great majority of plants will be healthy 
and strong, especially if restricted to prevent 
seed exha istion and are well fed and protected 
from encroachments of other plants. 
If there is no such thing as changing the 
organism of plants, why do we have plant 
breeding classes in our Agricultural Colleges? 
Of course, it is a recent thing, but twenty 
years ago not one farmer in a thousand knew 
plants were male and female or scarcely any- 
thing about their physiological parts. 
It costs big money to maintain a model 
orchard and bed of ideal perfect plants from 
which to propagate. New selections must con- 
tinuously be made and while with the berry 
it can be renewed every year and good ac- 
cumulations be rapidly made, yet with the 
orchard, it requires many years to effect a 
single change; so the growers of cheap nursery 
stock were forced to teach the false doctrine 
of stability of buds in plants. 
This subject was brought to the attention 
of the American Association of Nurserymen, I 
which assembled in Detroit, Mich., a few years 
ago, by that most eminent horticultural in- 
vestigator. Prof. L. H. Bailey, who pointed out 
the necessity of model orchards and ideal 
berry plants from which to propagate, and 
showed how rapidly our trees and plants were 
degenerating under the present system of 
using nursery row scions and hit-or-miss 
plant multiplying. In the discussion the 
nurserymen all conceded the correctness of 
Professor Bailey's,claims,^but argued that the 
7. 
