BUD VARIATIONS. 229 



years to come, and that the plant has yellow foliage, it is a sport, 

 but in the course of a hundred years they plant the seed. Will that 

 foliage be any more likely to be yellow than if it had been planted 

 before it had been lost for so many years? 



Prof. Green : I do not think that experiments have been car- 

 ried on in such a manner that we could do anything more than 

 guess. It is reported by some good growers that bud variations do 

 effect seed production, and that certain bud variations come true 

 from seed, but I do not know of a single instance. Olive trees very 

 often produce bud variations quite distinct from the tree itself, 

 and when you propagate the bud variation they come nearly true. 

 This is simply a case of the possibility of bud variation. It may 

 vary. My observation is so limited I do not know anything about 

 the limit of the thing. 



Prof. Robertson : You would not discourage the changing of 

 bud variations in new things? 



Prof. Green : I certainly should not ; I think it is a very im- 

 portant thing. 



Mr. Lord : To the ordinary listener a part of what Prof. Green 

 says would appear contradictory when he says that there are no 

 things alike produced in nature. If I may be allowed to explain 

 I should say that many things are so similar that the ordinary ob- 

 server cannot tell the difference. The saying is, "as like as two 

 peas." If you plant peas you will not get beans, and so it is with 

 everything in the production of nature. What this is which he 

 calls bud variation it is difficult to determine. We can, of course, 

 form a theory in regard to it and give it for what it is worth. You 

 have heard a great deal about hybridization, fertilization and pol- 

 lenization, and what is probably true is that the pollen of plants is 

 what really produces these variable characters. It would seem con- 

 tradictory also from the statement of a man who is well known to 

 most of you by reputation, Mr. Burbank, of California, who states 

 that a most difficult thing in all his work in which he has crossed and 

 hybridized and produced new fruits and plants, is to- predict results, 

 or to produce a certain form or quality. There are few people aware 

 of the immense volume and potency of pollen in the production of 

 many of 'our plants. To be sure, among us farmers we understand 

 only the crossing of corn. I have known corn fields to cross their 

 products at a distance of half a mile, but when you realize that the 

 air is full of this pollen, and that the corn plant cannot be repro- 

 duced unless the pollen falls upon the silk, it gives us some idea 

 of the wonderful process that nature has adopted. These bud 

 variations produce new varieties by simply taking a bud and split- 

 ting it in two and putting those buds on plants, where they would 

 produce different varieties of fruit ; or a union of two different buds 

 or buds of different character would produce the same results as if 

 one variety were placed upon another. This is a very interesting 

 part of this subject. When we consider the very minute size of 

 the pollen that is used or that develops itself and its character, we 

 do not particularly wonder at the great variations observable. Prof. 

 MacMillan in his lecture before the societv two vears ago advanced 



