The Life of a Plant Breeder 
For the past 41 years our Company has 
been engaged in producing improved varie- 
ties of our principal southern farm crops 
through scientific plant breeding. The results 
of these efforts have been reflected in the 
increased yields and quality of the cotton, 
tobacco, corn, wheat, rye and oat crops over 
a substantial area of the southern states. 
The life of a plant breeder is an interest- 
ing one—it is encouraged by the occasional 
discovery of outstanding plant families of 
great merit and almost limitless possibilities ; 
it is enriched by the knowledge of the funda- 
mental contribution that the superior strains 
and varieties are making to the wellbeing of 
agriculture and the millions dependent there- 
on; it has its joys and sorrows and to walk 
hand in hand with nature and to live with and 
study the functioning of the supreme law of 
heredity, as a plant breeder does, is a pro- 
foundly humbling experience, and is an 
inspiration and yet a challenge to his charac- 
ter and fortitude. 
Among the heartbreaking disappointments 
which the plant breeder must experience is 
the discovery of new plant _ diseases 
which adversely affect his hitherto disease- 
resistant varieties and when this occurs, a 
breeder should promptly announce this dis- 
covery, and marshal his forces to defeat this 
new enemy through the same breeding 
processes by which so many others have 
been successfully overcome. 
In the accompanying article, Mr. George 
J. Wilds, President of our Company, tells the 
story, fully and frankly, of one of these dis- 
appointing discoveries. 
—Coker’s Pedigreed Seed Company. 
