The
effect of the repetition on the nourishment of the chosen
representatives should be studied, for it is clear that a plant with 22
rows, the parents and grandparents of which had the same number,
indicates a better condition of internal qualities than one with the
same number of rows, produced accidentally from the common race. In this
way it may perhaps be possible to explain, why in my experiment an ear
with 22 rows gave an average offspring with 20, while the calculation,
founded on the regression alone would require a parental ear with 32
rows.
However, as already stated, this discussion is only intended to convey
some general idea as to the reduction of the cultures by means of
repeated selections, as the material at hand is wholly inadequate for
any closer calculation. This important point of the reduction may be
illustrated in still another manner.
The sowing of very large numbers is only required because it is
impossible to tell from the [786] inspection of the seeds which of them
will yield the desired individual. But what is impossible in the
inspection of the seeds may be feasible, at least in important measure,
in the inspection of the plants which bear the seeds. Whenever such an
inspection demonstrates differences, in manifest connection with the
quality under consideration, any one will readily grant that it would be
useless to sow the seeds of the worst plants, and that even the whole
average might be thrown over, if it were only possible to point out a
number of the best.
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