98 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



of tremendous importance in the propagation of citrus trees, is 

 the frequency and character of bud variations in citrus fruits. 

 These are variations in type of trees and fruits such as would 

 come under the head of bud sports or so-called bud mutations. 

 The Eureka Ranch Washington Navel Orange grove of about 

 150 acres is generally considered the most uniform grove of its 

 kind in the state. The fruit is extremely uniform and there 

 is a complete absence of variable types. This is one reason 

 why the grove was selected for this work. Our study of the 

 trees in this grove has revealed the presence of seven frequently 

 occurring types of the Washington Navel Orange. Five of 

 these types are unproductive, bearing low grade, undesirable, 

 and unproductive fruit. Out of about 13,500 trees we have 

 located about 100 trees of these undesirable types which were 

 rebudded, using buds from select trees of the standard type. 

 These rebudded trees do not represent all of the undesirable 

 type trees present in this grove. Only the most striking and 

 certain cases of undesirable type trees were rebudded. The 

 striking feature of this condition lies in the fact that the trees 

 in this grove were propagated from buds, but shortly removed 

 from the two parent navel orange trees. Bud sprouts as rep- 

 resented in the off type of trees were found in thousands of 

 instances, showing as single branches in otherwise standard type 

 trees, and in our breeding plots where all individual trees are 

 closely studied as single fruits in standard type trees. 



**We found many trees in this grove bearing naturally all 

 seven of the general types of the navel orange. Not more than 

 ten per cent, probably less, of the trees of the Standard Wash- 

 ington navel type in this grove are free from off type fruits. 

 This frequent and striking condition cannot be explained on 

 any other grounds than that of bud variation." 



Here, indeed, would seem to be an unanswerable argument in 

 favor of bud selection at least for citrus fruits. There is no 

 gainsaying the fact that there is such a thing as bud variation. 

 No two buds upon a tree are exactly alike; all have minor 

 differences. These differences may be caused by an excess or 

 a lack of food, a more favorable position upon the branch, or 

 any of a thousand things. If such variations are permanent 

 and give approximately the same result under all conditions 

 then we have a bud sport. The test of a bud sport is its propa- 



