Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-03-26
BREEDING OF PLANTS
What the Agricultural Depart
ment Has Done.
FEW THINGS ACCOMPLISHED
A Breed of Oranges That Will With
stand the Frost.
GREAT ADVANCES IN LETTUCE
Effect of the Breeding Upon This
Vegetable, Corn, Cotton
and Tobacco.
FEW THINGS ACCOMPLISHED
GREAT ADVANCES IN LETTUCE

The idea of breeding plants very much
as one breeds prize stock corn with a pedi-
gree reaching back six or seven genera
tons. cotton bred for certain characters
ties and new fruits produced not by acci-
dent but by scientific breeding, may sound
rather fanciful to the average man. Yet
such is the industry that is now being
regularly carried on and that is recognized
by practical farmers to promise more for
the future of American crops than any
thing else that has developed since Ameri-
can farming began.
Plant breeding is both an old and new
story. There have been attempts made In
that line as far back as the beginning of
the last century. The father of the plant
breeding business may be said to be
Thomas Andrew Knight, who wrote a
treatise on the subject in 1906. There were
others Before him, and there is the record OF
the first plant hybrid produced, when
Thomas Fairchild. an English gardener.
crossed the carnation with the sweet will
lam IL 1I19 But the business was long and
tedious and its full value was not recog-
nized till recently The Department of
Agriculture has been In the plant-breedlng
business for about ten years, but 1t is only
within the past three years that strides
scientists themselves, and it now looks as
though the whole food and flower crop or
the United States could be varied and
adapted to especial needs and especial con-
ditionS pretty much the workers desire.
A Few Things Done.
Farmers to some extent appreciate what
has been done but to the most city dwell
ers the whole subject is a closed book.
Yet these are a few of the things that the
scientists of the department have done:
The department has developed new
breed of half-sweet, half-sour orange that
will withstand the frost almost as far
north as Washington. 1t is commercial
success and has extended the orange belt
fully 400 miles north across the whole tier
OF southern states. There has also been
developed new breed of orange that Is
between the tangerine and the pomelo, has
the loose skin of the tangerine and some
of the acid qualities of the pomelo without
its bitterness. Corn has been the subject
of more work than any of the other cereal
crops, and strains of corn have been devel-
oped and perfected that will run fifty bush
els TO the acre more than the ordinary
crop, while there are almost as many diff
ferent varieties of corn for special purposes
there are breeds of dogs and horses
There is corn especially designed for sor-
ghum, breeds of hominy corn, table corn
white and yellow corn for meal and In fact
grades of corn from which seventy-five diff
ranging all the way from corn pone to the
heel of a rubber shoe.
Different breeds of lettuce have been de-
veloped adapted to the market needs of the
east and the west, which. by the way, are
totally different. Cotton has been deveI-
oped, as was recently stated In The Star.
TO point where the staple of the ordinary
upland cotton almost approaches the valu-
able sea island product. Tobacco has been
developed by careful breeding and selection
to n point where almost twice as much of
the weed can be grown to the acre as here
tofore, and the different breeds of tobacco
for wrapper, filler, binder, plug and pipe
smoking have all been improved so that
the grower is almost making money in spite
of the tobacco trust.
These are only some OF the things that
plant breeding has done in the past few
years, and the Department of Agriculture
has now reached the point where it can al
most produce plants to order.
One of the lessons that latter-day scien-
lists in the plant line have learned is that
plants to be a commercial success must be
bred on the ground, where they are to be
Produced that is to say, with conditions of
soil and climate approximately the same as
they Will find in the field where they are
expected TO flourish. The danger that is in
CURED in overlooking this fact is well Illus
trated by some wheat that was bred up to a
high point of productivity in one of the
Minnesota experiment stations recently and,
when moved down to Iowa, produced crops
that were but little better than the local
native grain.