158 NEBRASKA STATH IIOUTICULTTRAL SOCIETY 



a certain Concord vine there has arisen a caue which for many years 

 has borne clusters with fewer but much larger berries than those that 

 are produced on the typical Concord cluster borne or other portions 

 of the same vine. Seedlings which have been produced from self-fer- 

 tilized seed of this Concord sport differ in a marked degree from those 

 produced from the self-fertilized seed fi'om typical Coucord fruit borne 

 on other portions of the same vine. Among other instances of cultivated 

 fruits which have originated from bud sports are the CoUamer Twenty 

 Ounce and the Banks Gravenstein apples. It seems altogether probable 

 that the Gano and the Black Ben Davis apples are bud sports of the 

 old Ben Davis — since they differ from that variety chiefly in the single 

 character of color of fruit. 



Bud Selected Strains. — There can be no doubt that it is possible in 

 some cases to develop under asexual propagation selected strains by a 

 gradual process of selection of the propagating word or other asexual 

 portion of the plant as tubers, roots, etc. This process corresponds to 

 the development of selected strains grown from seed. In this way varie- 

 ties of the pear which in the original se3dling tree were armed with 

 sharp thorny spurs have been changed so that it may be truly said that 

 the thorns have been bred away. In a like manner thorns have been 

 bred away from certain cultivated varieties of the orange. Galloway, 

 who has given much attention to the growing of violets, states (Gallo- 

 way, B. T. Violet Culture 109-116) that the violet is a plastic organism. 

 "Different plants from the same source behave differently. To be suc- 

 cessful a man must work persistently to develop plants to fit the con- 

 ditions which he can provide. Left to itself the tendency of the violet 

 is to retrograde. By proper selection and right cultural methods the 

 yield may be raised from fifty flowers to 100 flowers per season in three 

 years." 



The potato appears to be a very variable plant and there is experi- 

 mental evidence to show that in some instances the yield has been In- 

 creased decidedly by selecting seed tubers from very productive hills. 



From all that has been said it appears that new varieties may be 

 produced sexually in seed hybrids, asexually in graft hybrids; sexually 

 in seed sports, asexually in bud sports; sexually in selected seed strains 

 and asexually in selected bud strains. Perhaps after all, we must ad- 

 mit that our friends wlio apply the torm pedigree stock to plants propa- 

 gated asexually have some show of reason for such a use of the term. 



But let us look into the question of the variation of plants a little 

 further. It must be admitted that among plants that are asexually prop- 

 agated the term pedigree stock can not righlly be used as indic^iting that 

 the distinctive features of the plant from which the pedigree buds or 

 scionr-' or propagating wood is taken arc capable of being transmitted in 

 the bud so that they can be depended upon to appear in the so-called 

 pedigree plants. In other words, that it is in fact a permanent sport or 

 mutation. 



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