BIO-DYNAMICS 109 



propagation by buds, cuttings, and grafts alone, and Prof. M. 

 Hartog tells us : 



Many much-prized varieties of our fruit trees seem to be on the 

 wane from this cause. Here, in Ireland, the Champion potato, from its 

 resistance to the blight, was largely cultivated for many years, but we 

 have seen it in turn lose its resisting powers after several years of 

 propagation by " sets." 



Some little time ago when visiting the John Innes Horti- 

 cultural Institution at Merton Park, where Prof. Bateson and 

 his staff are conducting investigations in genetics and in the 

 problems of sex characters and hybridization in plants, I was 

 struck by the graceful appearance of certain calceolaria 

 hybrids, and as the Times (20/7/14) says: 



Most of these are the results of experiments with C. cana, an 

 unattractive, primitive-looking thing with woolly leaves which only a 

 botanist would guess to be a calceolaria. 



So far as is known, C. cana has not heretofore been used in crossing, 

 but some of the hybrids from it are of great beauty, tall, branching 

 plants of the ' ' tree ' ' type of novel shades of mauve and lavender and 

 ether curious tints. 



Thus, again, we see that the wild or independent stock, 

 i.e., the plant that remained tolerably faithful within the bond 

 of symbiogenesis although quite inconspicuous is yet 

 superior to cultivated plants in positive ancestral dynamics 

 (symbiotics). We make "practical" use of the latter by 

 bringing wild plants into cultivation and by crossing them 

 with already cultivated varieties. 



I have said that the rejuvenescence of a scion by means of 

 a "graft" is equivalent to a partial restoration of symbiotics, 

 and like an infusion of "new blood " which yet in a manner 

 of speaking is " old blood " (the blood of an unspoiled blood- 

 relation with more vitality, and more likeness of composition 

 with that of the common progenitor), and we may thus antici- 

 pate with some degree of confidence the conclusion, 

 subsequently to be reached, that desirable " full-bloodedness " 

 does not, as some artificial writers assume, arise from and 

 require sanguinary methods of feeding (in-feeding), but that 



