EXPERIMENTS IN PLANT-HYBRIDISATION

Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original hardcover edition for enjoyable reading. (Worth every penny spent!)


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Contents:

Preface
1. Introductory Remarks
2. Selection Of The Experimental Plants
3. Division And Arrangement Of The Experiments
4. [F1] The Forms Of The Hybrids
5. [F2] The Generation [Bred] From The Hybrids
6. [F3] The Second Generation [Bred] From The Hybrids
7. The Subsequent Generations [Bred] From The Hybrids
8. The Offspring Of Hybrids In Which Several Differentiating Characters Are Associated
9. The Reproductive Cells Of The Hybrids
10. Experiments With Hybrids Of Other Species Of Plants
11. Concluding Remarks

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An excerpt from the:

PREFACE

This book is an attempt to present, in a form as simple and readily intelligible as possible, the subject of heredity, as related to man and his creatures, the domestic animals and cultivated plants. To write such a book has been with the author a long cherished ambition, but one which, as the years went by, seemed less and less likely of realization, as knowledge of the subject increased and took on more and more complicated forms. Each year, however, he has been forced by his responsibilities as a teacher, to make, for students having only an elementary knowledge of biology, an analysis and summary of our knowledge of this subject to date. The longer he has continued to do this, the more fully he has realized that a subject in a state of healthy growth can never assume a final and finished form. He makes no apology, therefore, for presenting the subject with very unevenly and incompletely developed parts. Such, it must be confessed, is the present state of our knowledge.

It would be a great service to the student to show him where in his subject positive knowledge stops and speculation, the useful servant but dangerous master in science, begins. This task, where possible, has been attempted in this book. But such attempts can of necessity succeed only partially and for the time being, for it often happens that the speculation of today becomes the verified theory of tomorrow. For having guessed right and proved the correctness of their guesses, we honor in this field the names of Lamarck, Darwin, Weismann, and Mendel. Others still living have made contributions of scarcely less importance but to name them would be invidious. Americans may take encouragement from the thought that all are not likely to be named from one side of the Atlantic and later enumerations are likely to include names from Pacific lands also. For advance in science never results merely from brilliant guesses by the few, but takes place chiefly through the patient, persistent efforts of numerous workers who test by observation and experiment every suggested explanation of the phenomena of nature. This is a task of such magnitude and such importance that in it the cooperation of all nations is needed and fortunately is not withheld. To promote the common good of all is the greatest honor of each.

The author has found that interest in the subject of heredity is not confined to college classes but is shared by people of intelligence everywhere, because it touches and affects the lives of all. The animal breeder and the plant breeder have an intensified interest in the subject because it vitally concerns the success or failure of their occupations. The needs of this wider public have been kept in mind in the preparation of this book, but it has not been thought necessary to omit on this account discussion of questions requiring thoughtful consideration for their full understanding. A discussion which evokes no independent thinking, or even opposition, is not likely to extend knowledge, the teacher's prime concern.