"George
Washington" (1908), the largest vessel (722 ft. long, 27,000 tons) in
the German mercantile marine, were built; and also sugar, cement and
other factories.

BREECH (common in early forms to Teutonic languages), a covering for the
lower part of the body and legs. The Latin _braca_ or _bracca_ is a
Celtic word, probably cognate with the Teutonic. The word in its proper
meaning is used in the plural, and, strictly, is confined to a garment
reaching to the knees only. The meaning of "the hinder part of the body"
is later than, and derived from, its first meaning; this sense appears
in the "breech" or hinder part of a gun. The word is also found in
"breeches buoy," a sling life-saving apparatus, consisting of a support
of canvas breeches. The "Breeches Bible," a name for the Geneva Bible of
1560, is so called because "breeches" is used for the aprons of
fig-leaves made by Adam and Eve. On the stage the phrase a "breeches"
part is used when a woman plays in male costume. "Breeching" is a strap
passed round the breech of a harnessed horse and joined to the shafts to
allow a vehicle to be backed.

BREEDS AND BREEDING. Breeds may be defined as domestic varieties of
animals or plants which man has been able to bring into existence and to
maintain in existence. The process of breeding includes all the
modifying influences which man may bring to bear on a wild stock for the
purpose, conscious or unconscious, of establishing and maintaining
breeds. Charles Darwin's _Variation of Animals and Plants under
Domestication_ (1868) was the starting-point of exact knowledge on this
subject; when it appeared, it contained not only the best collection of
empirical facts, but the only rational theory of the facts. The first
relations between man and domesticated animals and plants were due to
unconscious or accidental selection of wild stocks that tolerated the
vicinity of man and that were useful or attractive to him. The new
conditions must have produced modifications in these stocks, whether
these were caused by a survival in each generation of individuals with
the power of response to the new environment, or were due to a
conscious selection of individuals capable of such favourable response.
The essence of the process, however, came to be a conscious selection in
each generation of the best individuals, that is to say, of those
individuals that seemed to man to be most adapted to his wants. The
possibility of establi