Improving Plants by Selection or Breeding. 547 



marked, striking variations which do not occur very commonly, but 

 which, when found, are hkely to prove most useful in the production 

 of new types of value. The recent scientific studies of DeVries. a famous 

 botanist of Holland, have emphasized the great importance of such 

 variations in the production of cultivated varieties and the evolution of 

 species. As is well-known to gardeners these sport or mutations, appear 

 suddenly without warning or reason so far as we know. We cannot 

 produce them and must simply wait until they appear and then be 

 prepared to recognize and propagate them. Mutations usually repro- 

 duce their characters without much reversion to the parental type 

 except such as is caused by cross-pollination. Mutations of self-fer- 

 tilized plants thus usually come true to type, while in cross-fertilized 

 plants the mutation must usually be cultivated in an isolated place and 

 carefully selected to weed out the effect of such crossing as has occurred. 

 Many seedsmen examine their trial grounds regularly for sports 

 or mutations and many of our best varieties have resulted from the 

 selection of such sports. Livingston, of Ohio, who during his life was 

 famous for the number of new varieties of tomatoes which he produced, 

 m.ade it a practice to regularly search the fields of tomatoes which he 

 grew for seed purposes, for such sports and almost all of his numerous 

 varieties were produced by the discovery of such striking variations. 

 A very interesting case of a variety that originated as a seedling 

 sport or mutation is found in the now familiar case of the cupid sweet 

 pea. Until about fifteen years ago the only sweet peas known were 

 the ordinary tall, twining sort which grow to a height of from three to 

 six feet depending upon the richness of the soil. At this time there 

 was found in the seed trial grounds of Morse & Co., of California, a small 

 dwarf sweet pea plant only about six or eight inches high. This was 

 growing in a row of the Emily Henderson variety, one of the ordinary 

 tall sorts from which it evidently had sprung. Seed of this dwarf plant 

 was saved and grown and it wa§ found to reproduce plants of the same 

 dwarf character. The variety was designated the Cupid under which 

 name it was introduced to the seed trade and distributed over the world. 

 The Cupid differed from other sweet peas not only in height but in its 

 closely set leaves and genera] habit of growth. Indeed it is as distinct 

 from other sweet peas as are distinct species of plants in nature. From 

 the original Cupid there have sprung many different sorts until now we 

 have varieties of Cupids representing almost all variations of color known 

 in the sweet pea family. Every reader of this paper should order seed of 

 some cupid sweet pea and grow it in a bed with the ordinary standard 

 sorts in order to observe this marvelous creation of nature. 



