Chickens are now the most scientifically engineered of livestock. How have the methods used by geneticists differed from those employed by domestic breeders over time? Art and Science in Breeding details the relationship between farm practices and agricultural genetics in poultry breeding from 1850 to 1960. Margaret E. Derry traces the history and organization of chicken breeding in North America, from craft approaches and breeding as an 'art,' to the conflicts that had emerged between traditional and scientific methods by the 1940s. Derry assesses links between the 'scientific' revolution of chicken farming and the development of corporate breeding as a modern, international industry. Using poultry as a case study for the wider narrative of agricultural genetics, Art and Science in Breeding adds considerable knowledge to a rapidly growing field of inquiry.

"Noel Kingsbury reveals that even those imaginary perfect foods are themselves far from anything that could properly be called natural, rather, they represent the end of a millennia-long history of selective breeding and hybridization. Starting his story at the birth of agriculture, Kingsbury traces the history of human attempts to make plants more reliable, productive, and nutritiousa story that owes as much to accident and error as to innovation and experiment. Drawing on historical and scientific accounts, as well as a rich trove of anecdotes, Kingsbury shows how scientists, amateur breeders, and countless anonymous farmers and gardeners slowly caused the evolutionary pressures of nature to be supplanted by those of human needs and thus led us from sparse wild grasses to succulent corn cobs, and from mealy, white wild carrots to the juicy vegetables we enjoy today. At the same time, Kingsbury reminds us that contemporary controversies over the Green Revolution and genetically modified crops are not new, plant breeding has always had a political dimension."--Publisher's description.

Plant Breeding Reviews presents state-of-the-art reviews on plant genetics and the breeding of all types of crops by both traditional means and molecular methods. Many of the crops widely grown today stem from a very narrow genetic base; understanding and preserving crop genetic resources is vital to the security of food systems worldwide. The emphasis of the series is on methodology, a fundamental understanding of crop genetics, and applications to major crops.