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was gained by repeated selections of an English Squarehead wheat, imported
about 1880, and which after severe winters was at last acclimated. By these
repeated selections the variety gained great uniformity and also remarkable win*
ter*hardiness without loosing its Squarehead type. While the imported Square*
head — and as is yet the case with this imported variety — was not even winter*
hardy enough for the most Southern province of the country and consequently
did not give a greater average yield than the old, unimproved, native »land
wheat», the Selected Squarehead greatly surpassed this latter sort not only in
Skåne but also at a branch station at Ultuna in Middle Sweden.
Professor Hj. Nilsson, who when he assumed the leadership as director of the
Association, was Lecturer of Botany at the University of Lund, had, when he
attended the University, studied systematic botany and had made himself known
as a distinguished florist. It was therefore quite natural that since he came to
Svalöf greater attention was paid to the botanical and morphological characters
of the different parts of the plants, and the differences in these, by which they
are distinguished from one another. A doser examination of the morphological
differences and the observations, which then were made as to the constancy of the
progeny, depending upon whether it came from one or several plants, lead up to the
System of Pedigree, 1892. It was found that almost as regularly as the progeny which
came from a single plant was constant, just as often was the progeny, coming from
several plants, mixed and ununiform, even if these plants were alike in appearance.
The System of Pedigree was certainly no new system, it having already been
used for several decades by other investigators and plant breeders. Peculiar for
Svalöf, however, was the consistency and extension with which it was immedia*
tely adopted. The first direct result of this application was the discovering of
the great multiplicity of forms, which is typical for the old »land sorts» of cereals.
Already during the first years after the system had been adopted a very great
number of hereditarily (genotypically) different forms were separated from old na»
tive and foreign sorts of all the crops, with which the work was carried on —
from common vetch (Vicia sativa) for instance several hundreds were gained.
From deviations in the density of the heads of wheat and the characters of
the panicles of oats, from certain characters of the kerneis of barley, the colour of
the blossoms and seeds in peas and vetches etc. systems were devised by which
the great multitude of types was arranged into different groups. And even if
these systems were more artificial than natural and even if they were of no great
use for the breeding work, still they to a great degree facilitated the handling
of the varieties and the forms. In order to gain such a desirable facility, genealo*
gical tables of the plants were also devised and exaet stock books with notes
about the appearance of the different types in the field and about their chief
characters were kept. The keeping of stock books, however, was soon given up.
It was considered unnecessary, as the details about the types, which were registe*
red in them, were to be found almost as easily in the »field books», which
were annually kept and which are still kept about all the plots, cultivated during
the year, and in these books notes are made about all the types. Genealogical tables
are still made. A complete list of ancestors is always useful for instance in order
to get a summary of the numerous progenies of different generations of crossings.
L.
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