Selection in Agriculture and Horticulture. 79 



purity is not guaranteed. I have often bought seeds 

 of novelties and tested their purity by extensive sowings. 

 They almost always contain impurities. But whenever 

 I fertilized some specimens of the new forms with their 

 own pollen after taking care that the visits of insects 

 were excluded, they came absolutely true in the next 

 generation. We all know that we are lucky if we get a 

 purity of 97-99% ; the remaining 1-3% are, we are told, 

 atavists; as a matter of fact they are practically always 

 the survivors of the impurities that owed their origin 

 to free crossing in the field. 



The whole profit on a novelty must be made during 

 the first year of its appearance in the trade. ^ For as soon 

 as it bears seed in other gardens its originator loses the 

 monopoly of it. For this reason novelties are usually 

 offered for sale towards the end of the year in special 

 price lists to as many seedmen as possible ; they introduce 

 them into their catalogues, and that is why one usually 

 finds that most novelties are put on the market simul- 

 taneously by numerous firms. Their price is at first con- 

 siderable, but in a few years sinks to the normal, for by 

 that time as much seed as wanted can be produced 

 everywhere. \^ 



A horticultural novelty, when it has once arisen and 

 has been freed from the results of crossing and put in 

 sufficient quantity on the market, is everybody's plant. 

 All that remains to be done to keep them constant is to 

 avoid foreign pollen. 



The case of agricultural varieties, on the other hand, 

 is quite different. I am referring now only to the gen- 

 uine improved races and give the description of their pro- 



*I have often heard the vaUie of such a novelty set at iioo to 

 £150. 



