STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. lOI 



the germ plasm, she goes serenely on her way forever and ever 

 unchanged. 



I have said that the germ plasm remains unchanged from gen- 

 eration to generation. However, there are in fact two changes 

 that may occur in it. One change is a slight variation from 

 normal. The pendulum of variation may swing to and fro be- 

 tween two pretty well defined limits, but it always swings about 

 a certain center which is the type of the variety. Any propa- 

 gation from one of these chance swings of the pendulum will 

 not change its course, it will still oscillate in the same path as 

 before and with the same limits of swing. This form of varia- 

 tion is found in all animal and plant life and a new type cannot 

 be gotten by propagating from any of its variations, even the 

 extreme ones. 



It is possible that the seven types of Washington Navel orange 

 mentioned above in Shamel's work are such variations. Here 

 the pendulum of variation has swung through an exceptionally 

 Avide arc and has given us such widely varying plants. If such 

 should be the case it would be useless to try to isolate any or 

 all of these seven variations for commercial propagation. The 

 fact that Shamel was able to find all seven types upon a single 

 orange tree would lend color to the argument that they were 

 simple unstable variations. The parent bud from which such 

 a tree sprang must have represented one of these seven types, 

 yet it has produced a tree that has varied widely in the fruits 

 and branches which grew from it. Why should we expect any 

 different results from using any buds from trees representing 

 any one of these types? However, time will tell the truth and 

 it may so happen that Shamel is right and I am wrong. 



We have a second class of germ plasm variation whereby new 

 characters may suddenly appear and these characters may be 

 inherited. These are the variations that Darwin called sports, 

 a term which DeVries, the Dutch botanist, has since dignified 

 by the term mutations. De Vries has set forth the theory that 

 plants and animals may suddenly and permanently vary by 

 either adding an entirely new character or by dropping an old 

 character in such a manner that the organism appears in a new 

 dress. During this process of mutation the parent type remains 

 unchanged. I question very much if new characters unknown 

 to the parent type are ever added in such mutations, although 



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