A CAUSE OF FREQUENT MISTAKES 
Yellow Newtown apples produced by cross-pollinating with Roxbury 
Russet. 
The upper fruit has two distinct russet bands, whose appear- 
ance is merely a coincidence, and due to the segregation of cclor 
originally possessed, not to any direct influence of the Roxbury 
Russet pollen. Russet is a rather uncommon segregation character,in the 
Yellow Newtown, and it would be easy to suppose that this is a case of 
immediate influence of pollen were the true explanation not known. 
Many such erroneous conclusions have been drawn in similar cases. 
(Fig. 1.) 
strawberries carried on through twelve 
previous years showed absolutely no gain 
in productiveness by selecting runners 
from high-producing parents. 
More evidence and experiments of 
the same general nature might be 
adduced. The one main conclusion to 
be drawn from them is, that when an 
attempt is made to propagate a modi- 
fication it is not transmitted as such 
alone, but its offspring are capable of 
developing the entire group or range of 
variations of which it formed a part. 
Evidence and examples of segrega- 
tions are abundant, and many are being 
recorded. From this class of variations 
real advance or regression may be 
expected. Bateson calls attention to 
this form of variation and offers, quite 
correctly, an explanation on the basis 
of a somatic segregation of parental 
characters. He cites, as one example, 
two Sweet-Pea vines, each of which, 
normally having borne heterozygous 
purple flowers, produced a lateral shoot 
which bore red flowers, showing that 
“the factor B has been omitted in one 
of the cell divisions by which they were 
produced.”’ An interesting similar in- 
stance of my own observation is worth 
recounting. A friend who is interested 
in Sweet-Pea culture crossed two varie- 
ties, a pink and a white. From the 
second generation he secured one form 
which he has termed an impure domi- 
nant. It is white with pink edging, and 
has given rise through seed to many 
forms, light pinks, dark pinks, whites, a 
glowing salmon and a soft salmon rose, 
this latter being the only form which has 
not proven variable on further testing. 
Three years ago this same impure 
dominant produced a node-sport, a 
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