BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN RECORD 
VOL. XV JULY, 1926 NO. 3 
ASSES) ZNID 1PEKO RIE 2, 
By Ortanp E,. WHITE 
Curator of Plant Breeding and Economic Plants, Brooklyn Botanic Garden 
Peas and people are very much alike. Both are compelled to 
live under the same laws of heredity, and this is a fundamental 
likeness. From this angle their differences, great as they un- 
doubtedly are, appear trivial, for the basic problems of life con- 
cern us most; details are attacked last. So I repeat, as regards 
their relation to the laws of heredity—a basic problem—peas and 
people are astoundingly alike. 
Each are made of combinations of characters. Different com- 
binations in each produce different types. One pea plant is unlike 
another, as one person is unlike another, because of a dissimilar 
combination of characters. Thus arises individuality in both peas 
and people. 
Then again both peas and people are composed of cells, and 
those tyrants of the cells—the chromosomes—little bits of grayish 
life matter to be seen in dividing cells in both peas and people as 
rod-like bodies much less than one thousandth of an inch in length. 
Peas have fourteen, people forty-eight. Lest too much importance 
be placed on the difference in number, it may be mentioned some 
ferns have one hundred and twenty-eight. 
Chromosomes appear to be the arbiters of the destinies of both 
peas and people since they are believed to be the carriers of the 
hereditary bases of characters. Like little canoes, these chromo- 
somes float their freight of character determiners down through 
the ages, from generation to generation, through individual to 
individual, from old to young. Thus it might be quite truthfully 
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