514 WHITE: THE SALTATORY 
the most stable of the many known varieties of tomato; but of 
late years it has shown so much tendency to atavic reversion that 
gardeners are abandoning its cultivation. Possibly that senile 
decline of varietal characters with which the true specific attri- 
butes were long blended, has left the latter with more freedom 
for mutation, Still, it cannot be supposed that such a condition 
is the rule for all mutating plants, and it will presently be shown 
that mutation sometimes occurs in the first generation of a species 
following its own origin by mutation. 
Two dozen plants of the new variety from seed of the second 
mutation observed by me are now, July 15, 1902, growing vigor- 
ously in my garden and bearing characteristic fruit. Every plant's 
true to seed in both varietal and specific characteristics and the new 
variety, which I have called the Washington, gives promise of be- 
ing heritably stable. It shows no tendency to either varietal or 
specific change, although growing under the same conditions 
which attend both the mutations which I have described and with 
which it originated. 
There is nothing unusual in the physical conditions and en- 
vironment of my garden. The soil is clayey, formerly part of a 
cultivated field, fertilized with stable manure and sodium nitrate, 
and watered with Potomac water. The seeds were germinated in 
window boxes, in garden soil, and transplanted on different ground 
for each year, soon after the spring frosts ceased. 1 do not cer 
that any other case of mutation has ever occurred in the district 
which is occupied by the same soil and subject to the same en- 
vironing conditions, 4 
The new fruit compares favorably with the most approve 
varieties, and is therefore horticulturally valuable. But that fact 
is of little importance compared with the biological questions 
which arise concerning the mutative origin of the plant which bore 
it. I shall, therefore, in this article make no further reference 
the fruit and discuss only the biological significance of the plan 
mutation of which it was the joint product. The new variety, 
however, will be of botanical interest as a demonstration So : 
heritable character of varieties originating in correlation with spe 
cific mutation. 
. > pieherte 
The sudden origination of new plant-forms having hithe 
the 
