Man's position in regard to the struggle is that of an intelligent being who steps in at certain stages and protects, fosters, and in every way favours the agricultural plant—the living machine—and sees that every opportunity is given it to do its best work in the best way—from his points of view!
Notes To Chapter VIII.
The foundation of any course of reading on hybridisation and selection should be Darwin's Effects of Cross and Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom, which, with his books On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection and The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, will prepare the student for the long course of reading necessary for a full appreciation of what has been done in this department of science.
From the numerous works which followed these I should select Bailey's Survival of the Unlike, London, 1896, and Evolution of our Native Fruits, New York, 1898, as especially useful for the reader of this book, to which may also be added Plant Breeding, New York, 1896, by the same author, as giving numerous facts and practical directions of value. Further, the "Hybrid Conference Report," Journ. Roy. Hort. Soc., 1900, abounds in facts and information. Rimpau, Landw. Jahrb., vol. xx., 1891, p. 239. The student who wishes to get towards the root of the matter will hardly be able to dispense with Strasburger's Neue Untersuchungen über die Befruchtungsvorgang bei den Phanerogamen, Jena, 1884. An interesting summary of recent work on Xenia and "double fertilisation" will be found in Bull. No. 22, U.S. Dept. of Agric., 1900. See also Nature, Mar. 15, 1900, p. 470.
If he wishes to explore the vast region of controversial literature that opens up from these points, and which is far beyond the purpose of this book, he may consult the literature collected in Kassowitz' Allgemeine Biologie, Wien, 1899, B. II., and the references in the works quoted; also, Strasburger, "The Periodic Reduction of Chromosomes in Living Organisms," Ann. Bot., viii., 1894, p. 281. For "Mendel's Law," see Correns in Ber. d. deutsch. bot. Gesellsch., vol. xviii., 1900, p. 158.
