The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1922-05-18
TRAINING PLANTS
FOR FOOD PURPOSES
LITTLE KNOWN MEN WORK
WONDERS IN IMPROVING
NATURES PRODUCTS.


(E. l.. Harrington in Tha Dearborn
Weekly.)
Certain men i:ave done such spec
tacular things in the way of plant
breeding end hybridization that they
have gained titles or plant wizards.
There are others little known to the
general public VINO have worked Won
GERS in bettering the natural products
of the earth.
In Central New York lives Calvin
Keeney. MI. Keeny is the man who
took the strings out Of string beans.
Surely, that is achievement enough
to give anyone fame. Everybody
knows string beans were very prop
erly named. Fo, merly, it was always
Necessary to unwind snarl of strings
IN dining on this vegetable. Mr..
K1eny grew beans for seed, hundreds
81 acres of them. He realized the
Na liability Of the stringless string
4asp, andfset about to produce one.
Nh Ssey got down on his knees
-anbsSSHt from plant to plant, try
i. iaiEs find a single bean without a
strins. He broke hundreds of beans,
and spent weeks in labo- before his
reward came. Then he found bean
which did break clean. He marked
the bush on which it grew with .
White rag, ari continued to search.
Only a few plants were found in the
whole field, but the seed from them
was saved very carefully, and the
next year planted in separate plot.
A considerable proportion of the beans
from this plot were also stringless.
They, too, were saved, and planted.
This process was kept up for sever
al years, unit, practically every bean
was a stringless bean.
Down South lives "Old Sol Wright,
the man who gave the rice growers
the Blue Rose variety. Salmon Lusk
Wright is his name but he is better
known to his associates by the name
of "Old SOL" Mr.. Wright has done
for rice producers what Mr.. Keeney
has done for bean growers. He went
to his fields one day end returned
with pocket full of rice grains from
various rows. He shelled them and
found big difference in the grains.
Some were long, some short, some
fat and some thin. Many were
stunted, and not q few misshapen.
Several hours that night were spent
in an effort to find perfect grain.
Disappointment was the result. Again
and again he lad this experience.
At last, however, several berries were
fou which approximated his ideal.
The were carefully planted and the
see / from them collected. Slight
inn -ovements were noted, and another
GRO was nursed along.
F,r months Mr. Wright spent his
Sevenings examining hundreds of tiny
heraies by an oil lamp. For six
years he worked this way, until he
lad accumulated several hundred
greatly improved grains. In 1911 an
almost perfect American grown seed
rice had been produced. 1t was found
to yield from 25 to 80 per cent more
head rice than any other variety.
Mr.. Wright called his new strain the
luue Rose. It was an odd name, and
is the way It came about:
While Mr.. Wright was spending his
long evenings inspecting rice seed,
his wife's mothe: read to him. One
right she read story telling of the
labors of g. priest who perfected rare
roses. A parishioner, intending to be
sarcastic, asked the priest Why he did
not produce blue rose. The priest
replied: "My dear man, if could do
that I would not have to be your
priest any longer" At this point
Wright stumbled on the perfect grain
he had so patiently sought for years,
end on the spot he named it the Blue
Rose.
It is one thing to perfect an i'm
proved grain Of rice, and another to
get the growers to adopt it. The
mills knew only Honduras and Japa-
nese rice. The growers were afraid
that the mills would not buy their
product if it were new kind. At
last, however, all prejudice has been
broken down. In a single year,
Wright has sold twenty-three thous-
and dollars worth of seed. Forty
bushels returned to one grower an
income of $4,000. At the present
time, Blue Rose is being planted on
nearly 100000 acres, Or more than
half the total rice area of the United