est
wheat-growing capacity, but the season there is too short for the
ripening of what were the finest varieties. This new specification was
promptly met and the early ripening quality of some inferior variety
was transferred to the varieties showing other highly desirable
qualities, and these countries are now producing enormous quantities
of the finest wheat in the world.

All of this has been made possible by the discovery, mentioned in the
preceding chapter, that many characteristics of organisms are units
and behave as such in heredity; they can be added to races or
subtracted from them almost at will. Pure varieties breeding true can
be established permanently by taking into account the Mendelian laws
of heredity. Similar results have been accomplished in many other
plants and in many animals. A cotton has been produced which combines
early growth, by which it escapes the ravages of the boll weevil, with
the long fiber of the finest Sea Island varieties. Corn of almost any
desired percentage of sugar or starch, within limits, can be produced
to order in a few seasons. The hornless character of certain varieties
of cattle can be transferred to any chosen breed. Sheep have been
produced combining the excellent mutton qualities of one breed with
the hornlessness of another, and with the fine wool qualities of still
a third. And so on from canary birds to draft horses. New races can be
built up to meet almost any demand, with almost any desired
combination of known characters, and these races remain stable.
Possibilities in this direction seem to be limited only by our present
and rapidly lessening ignorance of the facts of Mendelian heredity in
organisms--facts to be had for the looking.

What is man that we should not be mindful of him? Why should we
utilize all this new knowledge, all these immense possibilities of
control and of creation, only for our pigs and cabbages? In this era
of conservation should not our profoundest concern be the conservation
of human protoplasm? "The State has no material resources at all
comparable with its citizens, and no hope of perpetuity except in the
intelligence and integrity of its people." As Saleeby puts it: "There
is no wealth but life; and if the inherent quality of life fails,
neither battle-ships, nor libraries, nor symphonies, nor Free Trade,
nor Tariff Reform, nor anything else will save a nation."

In this work of the creation and establishment of new and valuable
v