Abstract
THE food question may be divided into two parts. 1. Its production (raw material). 2. Its preparation when produced. It is my intention to consider the first part only-food production. This, again, seems naturally to divide itself into: 1. Plant—food. 2. Animal food. And again, I propose to peak mainly of the first alone, alluding only incidentally to animal-food, upon which I will commence by making what remarks I have to make in order to clear the ground for the consideration of plant-food, the subject upon which I have been invited to address you. The improvement effected in the production of animal-food by the careful breeding or long repeated selection of sheep, cattle, and swine is so well known as to render it quite unnecessary to occupy much of our time in its consideration; I will only adduce one or two striking illustrations to show the kind of change which has been thereby accomplished. There is very strong ground for believing that the celebrated improved breed of shorthorn cattle is descended from a race originally black. Now black seems to have been in the eyes of all the best breeders of it a colour to be got rid of or wiped out, and this most certainly has been effected, for no single instance of it is now to be found. The improvement in the outward form of the animals has been carried almost to the breeders' ideal of perfection. These are external changes. Early in the history of shorthorns the breeders in Yorkshire made the production of milk their chief point, while those in Durham saved for breeding purposes the progeny of those cows only which showed the greatest tendency to lay on meat, and the result is the “Improved Durham,” the pride and glory of the modern cattle show, but which are very poor milkers; while the “York” shorthorn is synonymous with a cow specially productive of milk. These are internal changes effected in animals by selection. When we turn to plants what do we find? The first thing, aud which is apparent to everyone, is that each produces “fruit after its kind.” But close observation shows something more than this, viz. that, although each produces “after its kind,” no two plants of any kind are absolutely alike. I speak not of monstrosities, of which the characteristics are not heritable, but of that ever present tendency throughout nature to variation, of which the hoiticulturist has availed himself. These variations, of which we can proft through the great principle of inheritance are generally slight, so much sn, indeed, as to be quite inappreciable by the untrained eye or hand, but they are, nevertheless, striking enc.ugh to one competent to observe them. I will give a familiar illustration of this. Nothing can well seem more alike to an ordinary person than the sheep composing a well-bred flock, but the shepherd knows them all apart as well as if each had a name. To him they are no more “all just alike” than are the members of his own family. That these differences, apparently so slight, can be practically availed of, 1 Paper read by Major Hallett at the Brighton Health Congress. the existing improved breeds of sheep prove beyond doubt. I have already said that no two plants are absolutely alike. Of any two, then, one must be (in the direction of the difference between them) superior to the other. This fact, coupled with the principle of inheritance, is the very key-note of all possible plant-improvement. But, it may be asked, do plants offer opportunity of improvement by breeding equal to that presented by animals? Surely much greater. A cow or ewe produces at a birth one (or two) only—a single grain of wheat has produced a plant, the ears upon which contained 8000 grains all capable of reproduction. Now we can plant all these, and of the resultant 8000 plants reserve only the best one of all to perpetuate the race, rejecting every other. Can anything approaching such a choice as this be afforded any breeder of cattle or sheep, no matter how extensive his herd or flock? The advantage on the side of the wheat becomes almost infinite when it is considered that in the case of the above animals three years (instead of one) are required for each reproduction.
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Food-Plant Improvement 1 . Nature 26, 91–94 (1882). https://doi.org/10.1038/026091a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/026091a0