No. 5. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 397 



plied in many instances by division of the parent plant as was the 

 case with the Baldwin apple, the Concord grape and the Seckel pear, 

 each of which originated as a sport or mntation and were later pro- 

 pagated. The same may be said with respect to the Gano and the 

 Northern Spy which was discovered as a chance seedling more than 

 one hundred years ago. Also the Roxbury russet and Jonathan, 

 each of which have added material to the apple industry of the 

 country. Sometimes a branch of a tree differs materially from the 

 general type of the parent tree and thus arises a new variety as is 

 said to have been the case with respect to the Gano, Black Ben Davis, 

 each of which are said to have originated as bud sports from the 

 well known Ben Davis. Also the Bed Gravenstine originated as a 

 bud sport from the regular Gravenstine. 



Plants which are self-fertilized are quite satisfactory material with 

 which to work in the attempt to produce improved varieties or 

 strains. By isolating and propagating the chance varieties, com- 

 monly called sports or mutations, new or improved sorts may be de- 

 veloped. It is this method of plant improvement which has gfven 

 to the world the Fultz wheat. This variety was first discovered ns 

 a plant possessing striking pecularities in a field of Lancaster red 

 by Abram Fultz of Mifilin county, Pennsylvania, in 1862. The 

 plant was saved and from these selected heads was developed the 

 Fultz which at one time was quite popular. The same method was 

 involved in the development of the variety Gold Coin, which was 

 found as a sort in a field of Hybrid Mediterranean by Ira W. Green 

 of New York, who by five years of selection and propagation in- 

 creased the yield about ten -percent. 



In the field of the vegetable gardener considerable improvement 

 has been made by the selection and propagation of chance sports. 

 It is said that many of the varieties of tomatoes originated by the 

 Livingston Seed Company were found as variations in their fields of 

 well known varieties which were being grown for seed. Likewise the 

 variety Enormous was found as a variation in a field of iStone by 

 Mr. Meese of Lancaster, Ohio. Again the Earliana is the result of 

 competition on the part of truckers living in the vicinity of Sweeds- 

 boro. New Jersey, who tried to excel each other in getting on the 

 market with the first early fruits. At State College we have made 

 some progress along this line of selecting for earliness and yield, at 

 the same time taking into consideration the general character of the 

 fruit. The result of this work with Earliana is shown in the fol- 

 lowing table. It will be seen that with respect to both earliness and 

 productiveness we have made considerable improvement when com- 

 pared with the commercial seed used as a check, and which, in this 

 rase, was the best obtainable as was shown by our previous strain 

 tests. 



