Herbert John Webber

“ If the breeder must await the pleasure of nature to secure the changes he desires, the waiting may be long and tedious. If he must watch thousands of plants of a certain race or species every year in order to find the apparently accidental variation or mutation in the direction of the improvement he has in mind which may rarely or never be found, the process will be so hazardous that we should have to await the accidental discovery of any new characters. ”

“ The surveys have shown a striking relationship between the size of farms and profits. Contrary to the old impression that a "little farm well tilled" yielded the greatest profits, the surveys have proved conclusively that for general farming in the regions surveyed the largest farms are paying best. They have also shown that in spite of the high wages demanded for labor, the most successful farmers hire the most help. A study of the most successful farms upsets the old teaching that dairy farmers should raise their own grain and that they cannot afford to raise their own stock. ”

“ The spermatozoid which reaches the egg cell first would seem to be the one which causes fecundation. That one which is utilized in fecundation swims into the cytoplasm of the egg cell for a short distance, where it comes to rest and undergoes change. The nucleus slips out of its cytoplasmic sheath and passes on alone from this point to the egg nucleus, with which it unites. The spiral ciliferous band, which forms such an interesting part of the spermatozoid, remains at the apex of the egg cell in the place where the nucleus left it. ”

“ The New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell University, through its investigations and bulletins, its lectures and demonstrations with farmers, and its large number of students receiving instruction, is rendering its best service to the people of the State. If it has not met all expectations, it is largely because its facilities have been almost trivial as compared with the work it has been expected to do. The demands that come to the College from the folks on the farms and in the rural schools are far and away beyond the facilities for meeting them. ”

“ Are we, then, to conclude that the practise of breeders in continually selecting from the best for propagation is useless, and must we advise practical breeders to discontinue their selection? How can we do this in the light of the success of the sugar beet breeders? Have not Sea Island cotton growers increased and maintained the length and fineness of their staple by continuous selection? Have not corn growers maintained high productiveness of different strains by selection? Are not the Jersey and the Holstein maintained at a high degree of efficiency by selection? ”

“ One of the principal methods used in the improvement of any plant is that of selection, which consists simply in taking seed for propagation from superior plants, selected because of their possessing in marked degree some important and valuable character, such as great yield, particularly fine or long staple, etc. ”

“ The soil survey, by determining the character of soils and their relation to crops and management on the one hand, outlines the problems confronting the farmer, and, on the other hand, presents them to the Experiment Stations for their solution in a manner which makes for most rapid progress. With the large number of farms which are offered for sale or exchange in New York State, the soil survey is the only reliable and thorough method by which the true values of such farms may be compared and studied. ”

“ All of the intervening cells between the central cell and the spermatids being considered as potential spermatids, it becomes evident that we should expect blepharoplasts or their rudiments to be present. The fact brought out by Shaw and Belajeff that these bodies apparently appear de novo in each cell generation and then at the close of the division disappear in the cytoplasm, new blepharoplasts arising meanwhile to function in the next cell generation, seems to the writer to lend strong support to his claim of the independent nature of the blepharoplast. ”

“ Agriculture in the United States is advancing rapidly, and nowhere is there manifest more activity or more wide-spread interest than in New York. This general activity is doubtless due largely to increased cost of living and better returns from farm products. Farm lands in the state are increasing in value and there is every evidence that we are entering a period of great agricultural development and prosperity. ”

“ The factor of seed selection in cotton growing is of the greatest importance and yet I think it is safe to say that over 75 percent, of the growers of upland cotton, and indeed many Sea Island cotton growers, pay no attention to it, simply taking their seed from the pile at a public gin, for instance, without any reference to the variety, vigor, productiveness, etc. It is entirely a matter of chance as to whether they get poor and worthless seed or seed of fair quality. Superior seed of any strain could never be obtained in this way other than as a rare accident. ”

“ To understand breeding to-day we must clearly understand the conception of unit characters. We no longer conceive the species, race or variety, as a fixed ensemble of characters. Following De Vries, we now commonly conceive the species or variety to be made up of a certain number of unit characters, that are in large measure associated together by the accident of evolution or breeding and which are separable entities in inheritance. ”

“ The relation of the centrospheres to spindle formation was not traced out in detail, but its connection with the mature spindle and later stages of division is unmistakable. In fecundation no visible centrosphere is brought into the egg by the spermatozoid, and Farmer and Williams find no support for the statement of Strasburger that an apparent connection can be traced between the position of the two centrospheres of the dividing egg and the limits of the portion of the oospore nucleus which belonged to the sperm. ”

“ Some of the best of the select types have in our experiments produced twice the average yield of all the plants tested. As seed has been grown and tested from almost every hay-growing section of the world, we are safe in assuming that the thousands of plants which we have tested represent the average of what would be found in ordinary hay fields. New York is the first state in the Union in the number of acres of hay produced, and in total production ranks first, with over 6,000,000 tons having a farm valuation of about $70,000,000. ”

“ We are conducting demonstrations or test work on some 300 farms out of the 227,000 in the State. We are teaching one student for about every 500 farms. In this College of Agriculture, large as it has grown to be, we yet have less than one student to each rural township in the State. There are probably more farm boys and girls in any one agricultural county in the State than are now in this College of Agriculture. All this is in spite of the fact that the number of students is increasing so rapidly that we cannot properly keep up with the work. ”

“ It is interesting at this point to recall one of the most common differences between plant and animal breeding which is seldom clearly recognized by practical breeders. Plant breeders most commonly strive to produce new races or breeds with distinctive characters which will reproduce their desirable qualities without continuous selection; while animal breeders almost wholly limit their attention to selection within the breeds already established, to maintain them in the highest state of efficiency possible. ”