HORTICULTURE AND LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 137 



form or variation which suddenly appears upon some branch of a plant. The 

 phenomenon is known as bud-variation. Darwin was one of the first to pre- 

 sent a catalogue of bud-varieties and to discuss them in a scientific manner. 

 Well-known examples of bud-variation are the appearing of the nectarine upon 

 the peach tree, yellow cherries upon red-fruited trees, weeping or drooping 

 branches upon trees of upright growth, etc. The causes of these singular 

 phenomena are unknown. Many of our choicest varieties of ornamental 

 plants and some of our fruits originated in this manner. Bud-variations of 

 greater or less degree are common, and are known to all good observers. It 

 is probable that the anomalous apples, which occasionally appear, partaking 

 of the external character of some very different sort, are bud-varieties, and 

 not the immediate effects of cross-fertilization, as is commonly supposed. 

 Certain it is that artificial crossing will rarely, if ever, produce the distinct 

 bands of color which are often seen in these sports. It is not an uncommon 

 circumstance to find russeted apples upon a Rhode Island Greening tree, or 

 a fruit of a normally white-fruited variety marked with definite zones or sec- 

 tions of red or brown. The singular and pleasing diversity of color which 

 is often displayed in autumn among the branches of the same tree should 

 probably also be referred to bud-variation. It is probable that these colors 

 are often characteristic of the same branches year after year. One of the 

 most marked cases of bud-variation which ever came under my notice was 

 observed this year upon a tree of Onondaga pear. One branch, so placed as 

 to remove all possibility of its being a root-sprout or a graft, bore about a 

 •dozen pears which were intensely and uniformly russeted. They were so dif- 

 ferent in appearance from the pears upon the remainder of the tree that no 

 one would suppose for a moment that they were the same variety. Even the 

 Sheldon does not differ more widely from the Onondaga in appearance than 

 does this singular sport. Trees will be propagated from each part of the 

 tree. 



A very striking bud- variation was observed last year in a bunch of grapes. 

 The grape was one of the hybrids obtained by Mr. George Haskell of Ipswich, 

 Mass. (No. 95). The larger part of the bunch bore fruits of the ordinary 

 size and the ordinary, almost insipid flavor, but one branch of it bore fruits 

 about half as large, with thinner skin, an entirely different and better flavor, 

 and seedless. In fact, these small grapes were as good as the Deleaware. A 

 drawing of the cluster was made and was sent, together with various notes 

 upon Haskell's hybrids, to an agricultural journal, but the manuscript was 

 lost before reaching the press. As I neglected to preserve other notes, I 

 cannot give measurements. 



Bud-variation is not sufficiently known among horticulturists. It is a sub- 

 ject of great practical importance, it occurs to me. To indicate the direc- 

 tion of bud-variation in grapes, I translate the following from Carriere's 

 suggestive Production et Fixation des Varieties dans les Vegetaux, a work 

 which appeared before the publication of Darwin's remarks on bud-varia- 

 tion: 



" Bud-variation is comparatively common in the vine. It is well under- 

 stood in this case, as the vine is one of the oldest of cultivated plants and as 

 it is multiplied almost always by cuttings; and as cuttings are made by 

 millions each year a bud-variety soon becomes widely disseminated. It fre- 

 quently happens that a shoot will produce grapes differing in form or color 

 from those which are borne upon other shoots of the same vine. We may 

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