^6 ' HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK. 



more critical study of the comparatively few specimens to which an intensive 

 study is necessarily limited, and the purpose of this paper is the statement of 

 some convictions in regard to racial variation which have resulted from such 

 observations. 



1. The different plants of the same natural order tend to vary along 

 parallel lines. Fruits of the variety of tomatoes known as. Early Conqueror, 

 those of the pepper known as Squash or Tomato shaped, and of the Scarlet 

 Fruited egg plant, could be selected, which would be as much alike in form 

 as fruits from a single plant of any one of them; and I have seen a "potato 

 ball" of the same form. I have found fruits of squash, muskmelon, water- 

 melon and cucumber each having the peculiar forms and markings generally 

 confined to one of the others. Thus, last year, I found a plant of watermelon 

 whose fruit was distinctly warted, and in form would pass for a fairly typical 

 one of Summer Crookneck Squash. I have seen muskmelons as flat and 

 deeply scalloped as a fair sample of White Bush Scalloped Squash— squashes 

 as well netted and distinctly ribbed as a Bay View IMuskmelon. And it is 

 taste and usefulness rather than limitation of variant tendency which deter- 

 mines the common shapes of each of these vegetables. I believe that hybridi- 

 zation is often credited with variation which is due to this common variant 

 tendency. 



2. The natural orders are distinctly, but differently, affected as to the 

 character of their seed product, by conditions of soil and climate. For in- 

 stance, if sweet corn, from the same ear, be planted where it will be subjected 

 to different conditions of soil and climate, for but a single generation, the 

 seed product will give plants dififering materially in both stalk and ear. We 

 think the same thing is true of wheat, oats and other gramineous plants. But 

 we have never been able to detect the least difference in the character of seed 

 grown from the same stock under different conditions in cucurbitaceous plants. 

 We once planted a lo-acre field with Round Icing watermelon, five acres with 

 seed which had been grown for four generations within loo miles of the Gulf 

 of Mexico, and the balance with seed, originally of the same stock, which 

 had been grown for five generations in Michigan, and the most careful exami- 

 nation could detect no difference in the crop produced, either in earliness or 

 other characteristics. Quite distinct varieties of melon are common at the 

 North and South, and sometimes northern and southern strains of the same 

 variety are quite distinct, but w'e think that this comes from the selection 

 of the sorts best suited to the climate and to difference of ideals, and conse- 

 quently in selection of seed stock rather than from influence of climate. 



3. Cultural and climatic conditions are cumulative in their influence, and 

 affect the whole species. 



Thus, the Lima bean, originally a climbing plant, continued so for many 

 years, during which time several distinct races were developed, but no dwarf 

 form appeared ; then, within three years, dwarf forms of all the different 

 racial types appeared, and in several different places simultaneously. The 

 sweet pea, cultivated for many years and closely watched by many enthusiasts, 

 gave only climbing plants until 1892, when the "Cupids," or dwarf forms, ap- 

 peared in at least three locations and different stocks and five individuals, and 

 since then they have appeared in a great many different stocks and places, and 



