The plant-breeder before making combina tions should with great care select the inch vidual plants which seem best adapted to his purpose, as by this course many years of experi ment and much needless expense will be avoided. The differences in the individuals which the plant-breeder has to work upon are sometimes extremely slight. The ordinary un practised person cannot by any possibility dis cover the exceedingly minute variations in form, size, color, fragrance, precocity and a thousand other characters which the practised breeder perceives by a lightning-like glance. The work is not easy requiring an exceedingly keen perception of minute differences, great practice, and extreme care in treating the or ganisms operated upon, and even with all the naturally acquired variations added to those secured by scientific crossing and numerous other means the careful accumulation of slight individual differences through many generations is imperative, after which several generations are often, but not always, necessary to thor oughly ufix) the desired type for all practical purposes.
The above applies to annuals or those plants generally reproduced by seed. The breeder of plants which can be reproduced by division has great advantage, for any valuable individual variation can be multiplied to any extent desired without the extreme care neces sary in fixing by linear breeding the one *hick must be reproduced by seed. But even in breeding perennials the first deviations from the original form are often almost unappreciable to the perception, but by accumulating the most minute differences through many generations the deviation from the original form is often astounding. Thus by careful and intelligent breeding any peculiarity may be made per manent and valid new species are at times pro duced by the art of the breeder and there is no known limit to the improvement of plants by education, breeding and selection.
The plant-breeder is an explorer into the infinite. He will have No time to make and his castle, the brain, must be clear and alert in throwing aside fossil ideas and rapidly replacing them with living, throbbing thought followed by action. Then, and not till then, shall he create marvels of beauty and value in new expressions of materialized force, for everything of value must be produced by the intelligent application of the forces of nature which are always awaiting our com mands.
The vast possibilities of plant-breeding can hardly be estimated. It would not be difficult for one man to breed a new rye, wheat, bar ley, oats or rice which would produce one grain more to each head or a corn which would produce an extra kernel to each ear, another potato to each plant or an apple, plum, orange or nut to each tree.
What would be the result? In five staples only in the United States alone the inexhaustible forces of Nature would produce annually, without effort and without cost. 5,200,000 extra bushels of corn, 15,000,000 extra bushels of wheat, 20,000,000 extra bushels of oats, 1,500,000 extra bushels of barley, 21,000,000 extra bushels of potatoes.
But these vast possibilities are not alone for one year or for our own time or race, but are beneficent legacies for every man, woman and child who shall ever inhabit the earth. And who can estimate the elevating and refining influence and moral value of flowers with all their graceful forms and bewitching shades and combinations of colors and exquisitely varied perfumes? These silent influences are unconsciously felt even by those who do not appreciate them consciously, and thus with better and still better fruits, nuts, grains and flowers will the earth be transformed, man's thoughts turned from the base, destructive forces into the nobler productive ones which will lift him to higher planes of action toward that happy day when man shall offer his brother man, not bullets and bayonets, but richer grains, better fruits and fairer flowers.
Cultivation and care may help plants to do better work temporarily, but by breeding, plants may be brought into existence which will do better work always in all places and for all time. Plants are to be produced which will perform their appointed work better, quicker and with the utmost precision.
Science sees better grains, nuts, fruits and vegetables, all in new forms, sizes, colors and flavors, with more nutrients and less waste and with every injurious and poisonous quality eliminated and with power to resist sun, wind, rain, frost and destructive fungus and insect pests; fruits without stones, seeds or spines; better fibre, coffee, tea, spice, rubber, oil, paper and timber trees, and sugar, starch, color and perfume plants. Every one of these and 10,000 more, are within the reach of the most ordinary skill in plant-breeding. On the plant-breeder now rests one of the next great world move ments, the guidance of the creative forces are in our hands.
Man is slowly learning that he too may guide the same forces which have been through all the ages performing this beneficent work which he sees everywhere above, beneath and around him in the vast teeming animal and plant life of the world.
These lines were penned among the heights of the Sierras, while . resting on the original material from which this planet was made. Thousands of ages have passed and it still re mains unchanged. In it no fossils or any trace of past organic life are ever found, nor could any exist, for the world creative heat was too intense. Among these dizzy heights of rock, ice-cleft, glacier-plowed and water-worn, we stand face to face with the first and latest pages of world creation, for now we see also tender and beautiful flowers adding grace of form and color to the grizly walls and far away down the slopes stand the giant trees, oldest of all living things, embracing all of human his tory; but even their lives are but as a watch tick since the stars first shone on these barren rocks, before the evolutive forces had so gloriously transfigured the face of our planet home.