NATURE AND THE INVENTOR.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19846, 15 January 1920, Page 2

NATURE AND THE INVENTOR.

Here is a marvel of which you may not have heard; a watch-glass and a fine camel's hair brush are all the implements with which a plant inventor needs to perform his miracles.

Let us suppose, for instance, that two plants are growing in his garden-one trom South Africa, the other from Centra! America. Each has its own structure, luhits, hereditary tendencies, an identity of its own preserved through thousands of years. The plant inventor takes pollen from one, transfers it to his watch-glass, carries it to tho other, and from the glass transfers it to the bloom.

The i epii It ant seed is sown. A year passes. The new plants come ‘into hemg. They may resemble one parent or the other, they may be like neither they may he the veriest monstrosities. Iherc are thousands of disappointments for one sucess.

bor instance, the primnsherry is a cross between tho raspberry and blackberry, but has a fruit ranch larger and liner that cither. The man who invented this new fruit chose one seodiim out of Go,ooo. The rest were remorse” lessly destroyed.

“Muugoswcll” wheat was tho result of chance. Mr.Shirreff, a Scottish farmer, walking through one of nis fields on a July day in 1810, noticed a wheat jilant which branched strangely Ho marker] it and saved its seed. It yielded 03 ears with 2000 kernels. These he sowed separately in the next spring, and found that they preserved their characteristics. So a, new and valuable wheat came upon the market. Makers of new wheats are ensuring a bread supply • for all of ns in the future, liu'wheat land of the. world is limited in area, while blend eaters are increasing very vapidly. Bv miiW these lieu- seeds, the production of tho old uolds v. ill he doubled or trebled and so famine will be indefinitely de--1 erred.