The Palouse Professor Who Helped Rediscover Heredity

Prof. W. J. Spillman, formerly agriculturist of the Washington State Experiment Station, now connected with the United States Agricultural Department at Washington City, has been making some extensive experiments in cross-breeding. The Washington City Times of October 12 has the following article relative to his investigations, which will prove of interest to his many friends of the Northwestern states:

"Government scientists who have just returned from the international conference on plant breeding and hybridization in New York are unqualifiedly enthusiastic over the exploitation of a new principle in biology, which they describe as a discovery as important as that of the atomic theory of matter, or Darwin's enunciation of the origin of species.

"This principle, known as Mendel's law, will, it is maintained, enable the breeder of plants, and to a somewhat less degree of animals, to hybridize and cross varieties with the same certainty with which the chemist compounds materials or the mathematician works out an equation. Mendel's law, briefly stated, is that a first cross will result in offspring resembling one or the other parent, but possessing in an undeveloped form, termed by German scientists 'recessive,' the attributes of the other. The second cross will result in five types, possessing, respectively, the characteristics of one parent, of both parents, and of both parents in varying degrees. An example furnished is as follows:

Experiment With Mice. "A cross between Japanese (colored) dancing mice and non-dancing albino (white) mice will inevitably produce in the second generation prototypes of each of the original progenitors, and also dancing albinos and non-dancing Japanese mice, each in the approximate proportion of one-fourth.

"A botanical experiment conducted by Spillman consisted of the crossing of a bearded wheat, having hairy or 'velvet' chaff, with a beardless wheat, having smooth or 'glabrous' chaff. The second generation consisted of four varieties, two resembling the originals, one bearded with glabrous chaff, the other beardless with velvet chaff, and each variety was produced in the proportion of one-fourth. Further experiments demonstrated that each variety 'bred true' in subsequent generations.

May Perpetuate Production. "A further demonstration of this principle is found in the fact that where two self-sterile varieties are crossed all subsequent generations are prototypes of the first cross. In the case of the apples of commerce it has heretofore been impossible to foretell what the seed from any variety would produce, but by the hybridization of two self-sterile varieties the variety produced may be perpetuated continuously by the seed produced.

"The rediscovery of Mendel's law promises to revolutionize the hybridization of plants and the breeding of animals. It has obliterated the now obsolete theories of atavism and transformed cross breeding from anarchy to order. From the point of view of pure science it is a triumph of the first magnitude.

Story of Mendel's Law. "The story of Mendel's law as evolved at the conference referred to is as follows: It was first discovered by a German monk named Mendel in 1865. He expounded his theory in what is now said to be one of the finest scientific theses in existence, and printed it in an obscure publication in a little German village, where it attracted practically no attention, and was subsequently lost to the world. Within the last two years the principle was rediscovered, practically simultaneously, by four biological investigators — Hugo de Vries, of Holland; Prof. Correns, of Germany; W. Bateson, of St. Andrew's University, of Scotland, and W. J. Spillman, of the United States Department of Agriculture.

"The first announcement in this country was made in Washington, where Prof. Spillman expounded the then but partially proved theory before the Association of American Agricultural Colleges last November. At that time the theory was received with limited credence, but its confirmation in New York by three foreign investigators, together with the statement that Prof. Correns' discovery had served to bring to light Mendel's long-forgotten thesis, leaves no room for further doubt."