erable number of important varieties, which are commonly thought to have arisen 

 from crossing, have, as a matter of fact, originated as bud mutations. 



The term bud selection as used in this paper may be denned as the selection 

 and propagation of heritable bud variations which, for one reason or another, are 

 better suited for cultivation than the parent plants. Bud variations are of no 

 value in the work for the improvement of plants unless they are preserved and 

 propagated. Their preservation depends wholly upon selection. It naturally 

 follows, then, that bud selection is the agency through which bud variations are 

 perpetuated and utilized in the work of plant improvement. 



OBJECTS OF BUD SELECTION. 



The fundamental objects of bud selection in the work of plant improvement 

 may be classed as follows: (1) to secure new and better varieties of plants 

 through the selection and propagation of striking and valuable bud mutations; 

 (2) to isolate strains of established varieties which show characteristics of greater 

 merit or value than those of the parent varieties; and (3) to bring the average 

 performance of the population of a strain or variety up to that exhibited by the 

 maximum individual performance or as nearly so as is found to be practical. 



THE ORIGIN OF VARIETIES FROM BUD MUTATIONS. 



An impressive number of important cultivated varieties of plants are defi- 

 nitely known to have originated from bud mutations (8, 15, 13). This number is 

 probably only a small fraction of the actual total number of valuable varieties 

 which have originated in this way. This condition arises from the fact that 

 many of the supposed variations in seedlings which have been selected and propa- 

 gated as new varieties were doubtless the result of the seeds having come from 

 different branches of the parent plants. These branches as a result of bud 

 variations transmitted to the seeds their different tendencies which were discov- 

 ered as variations in the plants grown from these seeds. In such instances the 

 originators of the varieties propagated from such selected variations have often 

 assumed that the variations were the result of hybridization or other sexual 

 influences, when as a matter of fact they are actually the result of bud variation. 



It will be possible in this paper to refer to only a small number of the known 

 cases of valuable varieties of plants which have originated from bud mutations. 

 A few typical instances in different plant groups will be cited in order to empha- 

 size the importance of this factor in plant improvement work and to indicate 

 something of the possibilities of further effort along this line. 



Many varieties of roses have originated from bud mutations. Carriere (8) 

 gives in his account of bud varieties published in 1865 a list of fifty standard 

 rose varieties known to have originated from bud mutations and states that no 

 attempt was made to make the list complete. The 1919 Annual of the American 

 Rose Society contains a list (25) of 429 varieties of American roses, of 

 which 116, or more than 25 per cent, are definitely known to have originated from 

 bud mutations, for the most part within the past twenty-five years. Carriere (8) 



