How many know where the Crimson Rambler rose started its rovings? Is the Silver Moon a chance-sown seedling? If not, who is responsible for its development? Although many of our best apples and peaches have come from seed dropped along the highways and byways, this is not true of many of our prettiest flowers and is particularly untrue of the rose. "Rose" is the only word that can be recognized in nearly all languages of the world. The plant exists in many species and grows wild everywhere.

In 1927 the American Rose Society asked the expert rose growers, those who had had long experience with many varieties, to name the best climbing roses. The seven chosen are necessarily of wide adaptability and, for that reason, may be excelled by others in particular places, but they are undoubtedly the ones that have given the most satisfaction and delight to the greatest numbers.

First on the list is the Walter Van Fleet rose, originated in 1910 by a worker in the United States Department of Agriculture. Three other varieties of his origination are on this same list: American Pillar, Silver Moon, and Mary-Wallace. Paul's Scarlet Climber is second on the list and is the only variety from outside the United States. The once popular Crimson Rambler - an introduction from Japan, whose early history is unknown - is giving way to flowers more nearly like the bush roses.

The man who has had probably the greatest influence on the development of the rose in recent years has been Jules Pernet-Ducher of Lyons, France. For forty years this skilled hybridist has been producing new and better roses, and he is the founder of a new class called the Pernetiana group. By crossing the hybrid perpetual, Antoine Ducher, with the Persian Yellow, he obtained Soleil d'Or and Austrian Copper. From these have come some of the loveliest of roses: Souvenir de Claudius Pernet, Souvenir de Georges Pernet, Madame Edouard Herriot, Mrs. Beckwith, Angele Pernet. Lyon, Ville de Paris, President Cherioux, Willomere, and Severine.

Of the fourteen Gold Medals awarded in the Bagatelle Rose Trials for roses originating in France, twelve have been won by Pernet-Ducher. For varieties of foreign origin, five have gone to Alex Dickson of Ireland, three to Leenders and Company of Holland, two to Howard and Smith, and one to E. G. Hill in the United States.

The way in which new roses are developed is illustrated by the two following incidents. Van Fleet first crossed an old tea rose known as Devoniensis with the Memorial rose. One of the crossbred seedlings seemed to have some merit, but he was not satisfied with it. Emasculated flowers were then pollinated by the Cherokee rose, a naturalized species from China that runs wild in the South. A seedling from this parentage was unexpectedly more hardy than any of its ancestors and, on account of its porcelain-white, saucer-shaped flowers, was appropriately called Silver Moon. This lovely rose is brightening homes and gracing gardens all over the United States.

One of the first large-flowered, hardy climbers that popularized this class of roses was Christine Wright. This variety came from one of four fertile seeds grown on a climbing American Beauty flower crossed with Caroline Testout by James A. Farrell at West Chester, Pennsylvania. One of the other four seeds produced Purity. To get such good roses from so few seeds is an event that is not likely to happen often. Other rose breeders have had to work harder for their successes. At Richmond, Indiana, E. G. Hill grew five thousand seedlings at one time. All but sixty were discarded as soon as they flowered; of these, fifteen were selected for further trial and only two were named and distributed. But these two were Premier and Columbia, roses that stand among the first in the greenhouse class and are widely grown outdoors.

Plants, being fixed in one location, must be adjusted to the physical and chemical nature of the soil and so regulated that they will ripen properly in the available growing season, even in the most unfavorable years. For these reasons the genetic constitution of plants will always demand a great deal of attention. Animals can be moved anywhere. If the weather is too cold, they can be housed. If their feed is not suitable, it can be changed. Livestock that does well in one part of the world often does equally well in another. Therefore farm animals do not need the attention of the breeders so much as plants. On the other hand, the individual animal is worth much more than the individual plant. The good and bad qualities of a domestic animal are more apparent, and the reproduction of animals is more easily controlled. The breeding of animals has always engaged the attention of farmers from the very first.

Early Egyptian carvings show that the cattle of the Pharaohs had many of the desirable qualities of the beef breeds of to-day. From similar evidence, we know Assyrian horses had the size and conformation of many of our best breeds. To a certain extent these idealized creatures existed only in the imagination of the artist, but they must have been suggested by the livestock in the fields and, judging from these art relics, the ideals of ancient herdsmen were much the same as those held to-day.

History does not go back far enough to tell about the beginnings of animal husbandry. The great differences between domesticated animals and their nearest wild relatives indicate the long time that they have been cared for in confinement. Agriculture was the principal form of livelihood before machines were invented; and, while there has been much improvement in mechanical invention, animal breeding proceeds in much the same way it did four thousand years ago. Belief in maternal impressions, mentioned in Genesis, is still often held, along with many other opinions that have no foundation in fact. The changes that have been made in animals, adapting them to man's better uses, are the result of the application of the simple formula:"select the best for breeding stock."