Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/516

* BBEE. 454 BREEDS AND BREEDING. 1816, he painted the fauioiis LeyJen biirporaaster. Van der Werff, in the act of addressing the fam- ished populace during tlie siege of 157fi: "Take >ly Body, and Sliare It Among Yon." This work is marked by a felicitous arrangement of the fig- ures, and by a bold and lively coloring, after the style of Kubens. In the latter part of his life he was director of the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. BREECH {hrecch, the hinder part of the body; AS. brCc, breeches, phir. of brOc, Dutch hroek, a pair of breeches; cf. Lat. bracw, trou- sers, breeches). The rear part of a gun or other object. The heavy piece of metal which closes the breech of a gun and receives the pressure of the powder-gas is known as the breech-block .or hrecch-pliiff. Vhen a gun is charged through the breech it is known as a breech-loader. The breech and its adjuncts are important parts of guns and small arms, and will be found described and illustrated in the articles GlNS, N.WAI.; Ord.xaxck: and Sm-^ll ARsr.s. BREECHES BIBLE. See Bible^ Curious EmTION.S OF. BREECHES BUOY. See LIFE-SA^^NG Serv- ice. BREECH-LOADING ARMS. See Small Arms: Artillery; Co..st Artillery; Field Ar- tillery; Guns, Naval; and Ordnance. BREEDE, bra'de (Dutch, 'the Broad'). A river of Cape Colony. It rises about 75 miles northeast of Cape Town, flows south, and empties into Saint Sebastian Bay (Map: Cape Colony, E 0). It is navigable f<jr 40 miles. BREEDS AND BREEDING (AS. bredan, to nourish, keep warm, from hiod, brood). A breed, in domestic animals, is a race, variety, or strain resembling the general type of the species, distinguished by particidar characters or qual- ities which are transmitted and maintained. Breeds owe their origin to the tendency of aiii- nuils toward variation, and to natural and arti- ficial selection. Under domestication, the same kind of species of animals has changed naturally to a different extent and in a dilTereiit direction as a result of environment. Certain variations have been found better adajitcd to specific pur- poses, and these variations have been perpetuated by man by restricting the coui)ling, i.e. by selec- tion and breeding. This process, carried on con- sistently through successive generations, has pro- duced a group of animals of sufticientl}' marked characteristics, which are capable of being trans- mitted to the offspring, and which entitle these iinimals to be recognized as distinct breeds. Plants, like animals, tend toward variation, and, as a result of this, the equivalent of differ- ent breeds, usually spoken of as varieties or strains, have been produced. The principles un- derlying the breeding of plants and of animals are not the same in all respects, and the methods of operation are not entirely analogous; hence the subject.s of plant breeding and animal breeding can best be considered separately. Plant Breeding. The variation in plants may be due to natural causes, as environment, etc., or it may be the result of design on the p;irt of man, in which case it is secured by arliticially crossing two or more races or varieties. The natural ten- dency to be unlike shows itself in 'sports' of vari- ous kinds. .Artificial variation is secured by fer- tilizing the ovules of one i)lant with pollen from another, the jirogeny of such a union often ex- hibiting widely differing characteristics. Plant breeding is the fi.xing, by selection, of the desir- able traits found in the variations, whether nat- urally or artificially i)roduced. The farmer or gardener who seeks to improve his crop by j)lant- ing seed from the most favored individu;ils is practicing plant breeding. This kind of plant breeding has been going on in all countries ever since the cultivation of plants was begun. The improvement of plants by selection from arti; ficially produced variations is of more recent ori-' gin. The production of varieties by crossing has its basis in the sexuality of plants, a discovery of Camerarius in the last "decade of the Seventeenth Century. Crossing is the fertilizing of a flower of one variety with the pollen of a rtower of an- other variety of the same species. Hybridizing is the same operation, but between two species of the same genus. The first artificial hybrid is said to have been produced by an English gardener, Thomas Fairchild, in 171!t, when he crossed the Carnation with the Sweet William. The practi- cal application of hybridization to plant breeding did not take place until the early part of the Nineteenth Century, when the investigations of Knight, an Englisiuiian. and Van .Mons. a Bel- gian, were made. In the United States, the earli- est investigators along this line were .loseph Cooper and .lames Thatcher. Since these pio- neers, many persons have devoted their ener- gies to the improvement of races of cultivated plants. Conspicuous among these have been Hal- let, of England: Rimpau, of Germany: Vilmorin, of France; and Hays, of the United States, all of whom have develojied new and imjirovcd varieties of cereals: Louis de Vilmorin and his son, Henri de Vilmorin, of France; Kabbethge and (Jiesecke, of Germany, who have developed the sugar-beet; Richter, Girard. and Burbank. who have worked with potatoes; Livingston with tomatoes; Clark and Hinson with Sea Island cotton : Hovey and Dana with pears; Bull, who originated the Con- cord grape in 1840; Allen, Jlunson, ilillardet, and many others, with grapes; Burbank with plums and berries. Many others have worked with all sorts of fruits and ornamentals. In any .system of plant breeding, selection plays a most important part. Some natural variants or sports are propagated by cuttings or grafts, which is the most simple method of plant breed- ing. Others are grown from seed, like artificial crosses, and plants from these tend to wide varia- tion. This tendency can be overcome only by con- tinual rcjecti(m of ;ill plants that depart from the desired type, seed being saved only from those which most nearly conform to the ideal type. By continuing this process through a number of years or crops, a race will be found that will closely resemble the type in all its individuals. 'I'lie amount of care and labor involved may be seen from the statement that a breeder of sugar- beets examined, in one season, more than 3,000,- 000 roots of an improved variety, only about ,1000 of which were accepted for further trial. When selection is practiced for producing new races or varieties of cultivated plants, there are a few axiomatic principles to be observed : Al- ways continue selection upon the same lines, once it is begun. Great size and numerous parts can- not usually he secured in the same variety, nor are extraordinary earliness and great productiv- itv foimd associated together.