THE INTERNATIONAL PLANT-BREEDING CONFERENCE. 47 1 



through the jungle of heredity. We now know that an animal or 

 a plant is to be regarded as a collection of characters ; that in the 

 work of crossing each character must be considered as a unit and, 

 as Bateson has said, a species as a mixture of different phenomena." 



The new theory of mutation of species advanced by Professor 

 DeVries, director of the botanical garden at Amsterdam, Holland, 

 aroused great interest. It is somewhat opposed to Darwin's theories. 

 DeVries contends that new species can originate by a sudden 

 change, or mutation, and that this sudden change, or "sport," may 

 be transmitted true from seed. It is the theory of "sports" in a 

 new light. Professor DeVries has been breeding red clover and ad- 

 ding three or four extra leaves to the normal three. 



The improvement of many plants was discussed in the various 

 papers. Among them may be mentioned cotton, oranges, cow peas, 

 grapes, corn, strawberries, oats, pumpkins, sugar cane, roses, ap- 

 ples, plums, gladiolus, barberries, raspberries, castor oil bean, beans, 

 orchids, quinine trees, carnations, wheat and sandcherries. The ob- 

 ject of the conference was to bring together these various workers 

 to compare notes for mutual benefit. 



The Horticultural Society of New York should be given great 

 credit for the generous way in which the meeting was planned and 

 carried to successful completion. 



Thursday afternoon was spent at the New York Botanical Gar- 

 den, at Bronx Park. The delegates were given dinner at the botan- 

 ical gardens, and the afternoon was devoted to the reading of papers 

 and the inspection of the magnificent grounds and equipment of the 

 gardens. The main building is said to be the finest in the world de- 

 voted to botanical research and museum purposes, and the green- 

 houses are the most elaborate in America. 



The day after the conference was given to a trip up the Hudson 

 River at the expense of the society. The steamer took us past Gen- 

 eral Grant's monument. West Point and many of the places made 

 famous by the stirring events of the war for independence and by 

 Washington Irving in his stories of early New York life. The 

 scenery along the Palisades of the Hudson is certainly magnificent 

 and well worth seeing before going abroad in search for scenery. 

 Leaving the steamer at Poughkeepsie, the members of the confer- 

 ence enjoyed the liberal hospitality of F. R. Newbold, a public spirited 

 millionaire interested in horticulture, after which carriages conveyed 

 us on a tour of inspection to the Vanderbilt estate, where landscape 

 gardening has been going on for at least seventy-five years. It is 

 certainly a treat to see a display of garden art when the question 

 of expense is not an item. The return trip was made by rail in the 

 evening. 



