1914] The Ottawa Naturalist. 15 7 



generations of potatoes. In order to eliminate variations due 

 to hybridization he sowed seeds taken from potato balls grown 

 naturally, that is, no artificial crossing had been practised in 

 producing this seed. After the first generation each succeeding 

 one was produced from the tubers and not the true seeds of the 

 preceding. Careful comparisons were made between the mothers 

 and their respective progeny in different generations in order 

 to observe and record any apparent deviation that might occur. 

 Special attention was given to the colour of the skin and of the 

 -h of the tubers harvested, together with the size and shape of 

 these. The variations in these features were very marked. Most 

 of them were readily explainable by the principles of heredity, 

 but in one case there were found in the second generation four 

 plants which produced yellow-fleshed tubers, although the flesh 

 of the mother sort was not yellow, but white. This form can- 

 not be explained as recessive because yellow was dominant. 

 No very satisfactory explanation was given for this occurrence. 

 From the results of his investigation Fruwirth concludes "that 

 it is possible to improve our present potato sorts by the con- 

 tinuous selection of desirable hills." 



Mr. Newman then discussed briefly variations in pure lines 

 of self-fertilizing plants. He stated that recent work indicates 

 that in plants which are normally self-fertilizing there is practi- 

 cally no variation. While it seems certain that we must abandon 

 the "idea of the existence of continuous variation in certain 

 classes of plants, vet we know from experience that strange 

 forms do sometimes occur even in our so-called "pure" lines. 

 While the appearance of many of these strange forms may be 

 accounted for as crossing products, it has not been definitely 

 proven that new forms cannot arise quite independently of 

 intersexular combination. Forms appearing in this way have 

 been termed "mutants" or "mutations" by DeVries, who 

 believes that most new forms arise in this sudden independent 

 fashion. 



The speaker then reviewed an account published last year 

 by Dr. Kiessling, of Bavaria, on an elaborate investigation into 

 the origin of a form of two-rowed barley, which seems to show 

 that this form is undoubtedly a mutation. In 1898, Dr. Kiessling 

 obtained a sample of old Austrian barley from a farmer and 

 tested it at the breeding station at Weihenstephan. From the 

 crop of 1900 a number of plants were selected for pure line work. 

 One of these survived the test and came to be propagated in a 

 pure condition from year to year. In 1908, eighteen plants were 

 selected out of this line to prove 'its constancy. The progeny 

 from each of these plants proved to be constant with one 



