226 



The Journal of Heredity 



ance in the present form indicates that 

 pubHc sentiment still has a wrong idea 

 of the proper and profitable relation 

 that can and should exist between 

 legislation and eugenics. In general 

 the writers believe, and most genetists 

 have come to the same view, that steri- 

 lization by law is not in many cases a 

 desirable procedure for eugenists to 

 advocate; that permanent isolation of 

 the defective classes is a preferable 

 means of dealing \vith them; and that 

 neither the science of eugenics nor 

 public sentiment is ready for legislation 

 putting restrictions on marriage, so far 

 as those restrictions are strictly eugenic 

 rather than hygienic in intent. 



The kind of legislation that will 

 really advance the science of eugenics 

 at the present time is legislation that 

 provides for research. The public seems 

 to have an idea that the study of 

 heredity is being profoundly cultivated 

 by many well-equipped institutions 

 and a large body of workers. As a 

 fact, the active workers in this field are, 

 and always have been, merely a cor- 

 poral's guard. Their achievement is far 

 out of proportion to their fewness; yet 

 thev have done little more than scratch 



the surface of the field. We have 

 learned much; we have enough knowl- 

 edge to make definite action ijrofitable 

 in many lines; but the distance we have 

 yet to go is far greater than that we have 

 already traversed. Immediate action 

 in negative eugenics is in man}' quarters 

 desirable, but the great need of eugenics, 

 and one that is not being adequately 

 met, is the need for more facts. 



It is time for the friends of eugenics 

 to stop promoting such legislation as 

 that herein outlined, and to divert more 

 of their energy to a broad, constructive 

 policy for the furtherance of eugenics. 

 They may, for example, very profitably 

 help to: 



Promote research in heredity; 



Disseminate a knowledge of the laws 

 of heredity; 



Create a "eugenic conscience" in the 

 public ; 



Give the young people of their 

 acquaintance a chance to meet and fall 

 in love with suitable life-partners ; 



Further every means that 'wall remove 

 some of the social and economic bars 

 to marriage and parenthood, that now 

 tell so heavily on our eugenically superior 

 classes. 



Heredity In Apples 



Apple breeding was begun at the New York state experiment station (Geneva, 

 N. Y.) in 1898, and 148 seedhngs of crosses then made have fruited. The results 

 of these crosses have satisfied the experimenters: (i) that seedling apples have very 

 little tendency to revert to the wild prototype, despite the popular belief to the 

 contrary; (ii) that some of the characters of apples seem to be prepotent in trans- 

 mission. The vigor expected of a first hybrid generation is found to a marked 

 degree. 



Interesting facts regarding the inheritance of separate traits have been worked 

 out. In color of skin, the fruits in which yellow predominates over red seem to be 

 heterozygous; the fruits in which red predominates seem to be either homozygous 

 or heterozygous, while those of pure yellow color are apparently homozygous. As 

 to color of flesh in Ben Davis and Mcintosh, whose crosses were most carefully 

 studied, there is reason to believe that they carry both yellow and white, the latter 

 being recessive. Sourness and sweetness may be allelomorphs, the former a 

 dominant and the latter a recessive, since in many crosses there were three sour 

 ajjples for every sweet one. In general, the exi^crimcnters do not think Mendelism 

 offers much ]jractical promise in improving varieties of api:)les. They further 

 think that size and shape are inherited in an intermediate or blended condition: 

 which is perhaps the same as saying that they are caused by so many separate 

 characters, inherited inde])endentiy, that the crosses produce almost every possible 

 result. 



