46 Latent and Sciiii-Latcnt Characters. 



leaves. And it is obvious that such leaves will extend 

 both above and below tlie maximum of the period in 

 direct proportion to their numl)er. Whence it again fol- 

 lows that the ])eLter nourished the plant is, the earlier 

 will the abnormality appear. And this is true both of 

 the individual branches and of the rosette of radical 

 leaves, and therefore of the whole plant. 



From these conclusions the converse rule may be de- 

 duced that the earlier a seedling produces its first tetram- 

 erous leaf, the greater will ])ro1:)al)ly be tlie number of ab- 

 normal leaves on the adult plant. The most abnormal 

 plants will probably be those which in the seedling stage 

 had a compound primary leaf. Experience has proved 

 the truth of this rule throughout my experiments. 



If we now take another glance at the table on page 38 

 we see that the character recorded has gradually shifted 

 in the course of generations and as a result of selection. 

 The more the improvement advanced the earlier could 

 selection be effected. In the tliird generation I kept 300 

 plants in the beds to be selected from ; since the fourtli 

 generation I have carried out the selection in the seed- 

 pans and only ])lanted out the few best (e. g., 10-20) to 

 act as seed-]:)arents. 



It is possible, therefore, within the limits of such a 

 race, on the one hand to effect an increase in the number 

 of multipartite leaves, and on the other to reduce it bv 

 reversed selection. In both cases we go as far as pos- 

 sible from the mean of the race, without, however, suc- 

 ceeding in overstepping its definite boundaries. Let us 

 see what selection is able to effect in the two cases, and 

 let us begin with the former. It is the question of in- 

 tensifying the anomaly to its extreme limit. 



A striking peculiarity of my race is the fact that leaves 



