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In agriculture the choice of the most adequate elementary forms for any special purpose is acknowledged as the first step in the way of selection, and is designated by the name of variety-testing, applying the term variety to all the subdivisions of systematic species indiscriminately. In natural processes it bears the title of survival of species.
Next to variety-testing and hybridizing it is the great source of the steady progression of agricultural crops. From a practical standpoint the method is clear and as perfect as might be expected, but this is not the side of the problem with which we are concerned here.
In agricultural practice the corresponding process is usually designated by the name of variety-testing. Within the species, or within the variety, the sieve of natural selection is constantly eliminating poor specimens and preserving those that are best adapted to live under the given conditions.
Later he published his results in a work on the varieties, peculiarities and classification of wheat , which though now very rare, has been the basis and origin of the principle of variety-testing. The discovery of Lagasca and Le Couteur was of course not applicable to the wheat of Jersey alone. The common cultivated sorts of wheat and other grains were mixtures then as they are even now.
Both natural and artificial selection are partly specific, and partly intra-specific or individual. Nature of course, and intelligent men first chose the best elementary species from among the swarms. In cultivation this is the process of variety-testing. In nature it is the survival of the fittest species, or, as Morgan designates it, the survival of species in the struggle for existence.
Thus the choice of the variety is the first principle to be applied in every single case; the so-called artificial selection takes only a secondary place. Calling all minor units within the botanic species by the common name of varieties, without regard to the distinction between elementary species and retrograde varieties, the principle is designated by the term of "variety-testing."
This selection of species or species-selection was the work of Le Couteur and Patrick Shirreff, and is now in general use in practice where it has received the name of variety-testing. This clear and unequivocal term however, can hardly be included under the head of natural selection.
The leading principle, however, is clearly indicated, and anyone who studies with care his method of working, may confidently attempt to improve the varieties of his own locality in the same way. This great principle of "variety-testing," as it has been founded by Le Couteur and Patrick Shirreff, has increased in importance ever since. Two main features are to be considered here.
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