72 HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK. 



from a variety from our Indian corn that will ripen. A new 

 light has been thrown on this matter by the mutation theory of 

 De Vries. We now know that a systematic species is made up 

 of a great many elementary species which are perfectly dis- 

 tinct from each other and absolutely fixed in type. While on 

 my third trip to Russia in the summer of 1906, I visited the ex- 

 periment station at Svalof, Sweden, w^here Dr. Nilsson has been 

 conducting with such remarkable success a series of experiments 

 in improving cereals by isolating each variety as an elementary 

 species. The Swedish Select oats, for example, which is now so 

 popular in the prairie northwest, was originated at this station. 

 Dr. Nilsson considers that an ordinary variety of barley, for 

 example, is made up in reality of many varieties differing 

 slightly but each perfectly distinct from the others and constant 

 from seed. These sub-varieties are really elementary species, 

 i. e., they are mutations. When grown in certain sections for 

 many years these hold their own in varying proportions from 

 year to year ; but when raised at the South, the extra early 

 mutations wall be crowded out to a considerable extent by the 

 later mutations, which are usually more productive. If now this 

 variety is transferred say four hundred miles further north, a 

 readjustment of these varying proportions takes place very 

 rapidly. The late mutations are crowded out because the seed 

 does not mature, while the extra early ones, which were in a 

 decided minority before, quickly gain the ascendency and very 

 soon the variety is made up entirely of these extremely early 

 sub-varieties. So that the acclimatization of annual plants is in 

 reality not a changing in the plants themselves, but only the 

 sifting out of the unfit elementary species. In fact, Dr. Nils- 

 son believes that extra early mutations can be isolated at the 

 South, as well as they can be at the extreme North, provided 

 sufficient care is taken in the selection. The farther south a 

 variety is raised, the greater the care needed to select only the 

 very earliest mutations, if a variety for the far north is desired. 



It is worthy of note that the many failures in farming in 

 the cold, semi-arid regions of the prairie northwest are due to 

 the fact that the plants cultivated were from the milder climate 

 of western Europe. In other words, it is unwise to farm in a 



