Kew York Aorioultural Experiment Station. 471 



be assumed tliat both Ben Davis and Mcintosh carry yellow and 

 white, the white being recessive. This assumption would give 

 nine yellows to three whites and there are eight yellowish indi- 

 viduals to three whites. From the general appearance of the 

 Mcintosh flesh, one would think it to be homozygous for white. 

 However, it is not impossible to believe that the yellow is present 

 and that the factor necessary for its development is lacking. 



Size and shape. — It promises to be a difficult problem to 

 determine inheritance of size and shape in apples. Castle has 

 found size to be an intermediate character in his study of the 

 inheritance of size in rabbits, and East has found parents of 

 dift'erent sizes in maize to produce ears of intermediate length 

 and kernels of intermediate size. The intermediates or Fi gen- 

 eration in the maize produced progeny which varied in size from 

 the small to the large parent, while the Fi generation of rabbits 

 produced only ofi^spring of interme'diate size. It may be sus- 

 pected, therefore, that fruits likewise produce intermediate indi- 

 viduals. However, if size and shape consist of a complex of 

 unit characters, it will be very difficult to determine whether 

 they are bred as intermediates or not, for to so ascertain would 

 require the production of thousands of individuals to obtain all 

 the possible combinations of a complex of five or six units. 

 Size and shape of fruits depend upon at least length and breadth 

 measurements — not mentioning such unknown factors as 

 nutrition, fertilization of the ovules and the like. "With these 

 unkno\^Ti factors and in consideration of the meager data, we 

 can draw but the roughest conclusions as to the inheritance of 

 these characters. 



Ben Davis X Mother gave six individuals which resemble the 

 mother parent, four that are classed as intermediates and ten 

 which bear paternal characteristics as to shape and size. This 

 classification does not sig^lify that the offspring are exactly like 

 either one of the parents but that the majority of the characters 

 are more like one parent than the other, and consequently bear a 

 closer resemblance to the one than to the other. In this cross 

 none of the twenty seedlings were much inferior or much su- 

 perior to either parent in size. The size and shape of these 

 crosses are shown in Plates XLVII, XLVIII, XLIX. 



