TWENTY-SIXTH SESSION. 
53 
trees of uniform excellence. Without this tendency, a pedigree is a delusion. 
Better adopt, the term “selected,” for plants whose genealogy has just begun. 
The use of the term “pedigree” for such plants will bring the efforts of plant 
breeders into disrepute. 
The limits of this paper are too restricted to allow of a more extended 
treatment of the subject in hand. The breeding of plants is a complicated 
subject, but none the less fascinating or promising for the diligent plant 
breeder. And one of the promising fields that is unexplored is the improve- 
ment of varieties through the continued selection of individuals of superior 
merit. The field is before us. It awaits the .efforts of the skillful, patient 
pomologist. 
Mr. W. B. K. Johnson inquired as to how the apple trees referred to were 
planted. 
Prof. Powell: They are in the midst of a block of Winesaps and stand in 
a row. The trees were taken from a whole group of trees. 
The Society was next entertained and instructed by a stereopticon lecture 
on “Systematic Plant Breeding,” by Mr. Herbert J. Webber, of the Division 
of Vegetable Physiology and Pathology, U. S. Dept, of Agriculture. 
SYSTEMATIC PLANT-BREEDING. 
BY HERBERT J. WEBBER IN CHARGE OP PLANT BREEDING LABORA- 
TORY UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE, WASH- 
INGTON, D. C„ SYNOPSIS OF LECTURE. ILLUSTRATED 
WITH FIFTY LANTERN SLIDES. 
The speaker explained that his object was not so much to outline a sys- 
tem of plant-breeding, as to emphasize, by a few examples, the desirability 
and necessity of having a definite aim in view in all breeding worn, if any- 
thing of practical value is expected to accrue from the experiments. Since 
Thomas Fairchild made the first plant hybrid, about the middle of the last 
century, many thousands of hybrids have been carefully made, yet only a 
few of these have yielded valuable results. A very large number of them 
were made in a purely haphazard way, evidently with no definite aim in 
view other than to produce a hybrid and see what freak would be exhibited. 
The extensive experiments of Koelreuter and Gaertner in this direction, com- 
prising the production and study of many thousands of hybrid plants were 
mainly of scientific value, as throwing light on the general principles of 
plant-breeding. 
Systematic plant-breeding, having in view the production of improved sorts 
of our cultivated plants, may be said to have begun with the work of Thomas 
Andrew Knight in the beginning of the nineteenth century. Knight first 
brought hybridization into use in the practical improvement of our cultivated 
plants, and obtained very valuable results. About the same time, a Belgian 
horticulturist was working on the improvement of the pear, and certain 
other fruits, and demonstrated what could be secured by the principle of 
selection. Since that time various experimenters have employed the prin- 
ciples they discovered, and have added numerous other principles of im- 
portance till now the plant breeder largely follows well known laws. 
In studying the literature of plant breeding, no one feature is more im- 
pressed upon the reader than the necessity of having a well defined aim in 
